Marching with Gomez 



Marching with Gomez 

A War Correspondent's Field Note-Book 

kept during four months with 

the Cuban Army 

By GROVER FLINT 

Illustrated by the Author 



WITH AN HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 

r-- 

By JOHN FISKEi? - 



VTCRESC1T 




LAMSON, WOLFFE AND COMPANY 

Boston^ New Tork, and London Mdcccxcviii 




h1^ 






By Lamson, Wolffe and Company. 



All rights reserved. 



vS> 



5^ 






The Norwood Press 

J. S. Cusbing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



vl\ 






To A. S. F. 

who in her lifetime 

treasured his unskilled writings 

and careless sketches 

THE AUTHOR DEDICATES 

this book 



Contents 



Page 



Introduction ...... 






xi 


Chapter 
I. 


Searching for Gomez 

A Pacifico Household ..... 3 


II. 


Savanas Nuevas .... 






1 2 


III. 


Singeing the King's Beard . 






28 


IV. 


A Skirmish with the " Gringos " 






34 


V. 


" Pacified Matanzas " 






43 


VI. 


With Lacret and his Staff" . 






55 


VII. 


The Prefectura Pedrosa 






72 


VIII. 


Marto's Men .... 






79 


IX. 


The Zone of Cienfuegos 






89 


X. 


Tvpical Atrocities — The Olayita Mas. 


-acre 




98 


XI. 


Crossing the Line 






1 10 



Marching with Gomez 



I. The Man under the Hub . 

II. Gomez' Staff . 

III. Manajanabo 

IV. Our Last Skirmish in Las Villas 



119 

129 
139 
14- 



Contents 



Chapter 

V. 



VI 

VII 

VIII, 



Into Camaguey . 

Gomez' Moral Campaign in Camaguey 
Gomez and Hernandez 
The Battle of Saratoga 
IX. Echoes of Saratoga . 
X. The Itinerant Government 
XI. Cuba Libre 
XII. The Sub-prefectura Yatal . 



Appendix A Social Classes in Cuba .... 
Appendix B On the Organization of the Cuban Army 
Appendix C The Death of Mr. Crosby and the Murder 
of Mr. Govin ..... 
Appendix D What Concentration Means 
Appendix E The Effects of the Modern Mauser Bullet . 



Page 
159 

! 74 

186 
198 

214 

222 

237 
254 



271 
275 

280 
284 
286 



Introduction 

THE first glimpse that we get of Cuba, after 
its discovery by Columbus, reveals to us 
with startling vividness the impression al- 
ready entertained in the island with regard 
to Spaniards. It was not until 151 1 that they began 
to occupy Cuba. The wrecking of Columbus' best 
ship on the coast of Hispaniola (Hayti) led to the 
founding of the first settlements upon that coast, and 
the discovery of gold in 1496 began bringing Span- 
iards by hundreds to the New World. How they 
behaved themselves in beautiful Hispaniola was long 
ago described for us by the good Las Casas, in his 
famous book, "The Destruction of the Indies." 
The storv makes one of the most hideous chapters 
in the history of mankind. Rumors of what was 
going on from time to time reached the ears of a 
certain important chieftain in the neighboring island 
of Cuba, and he sent spies over to Hispaniola, who 
more than confirmed the worst things that had been 
reported. One day this chieftain, whose name was 
Hatuey, found a large ingot of gold and forthwith 
called together his tribal council. " Know ye, my 
brethren," said he, " that this yellow thing is the 
god of the Spaniards; wherefore let us propitiate it 
with songs and dances, and pray it to turn the 
mind of those people away from coming to Cuba/' 



xii Introduction 



So the Indians danced around the ingot until they 
grew weary, when their chief further observed, " Let 
not this deity remain above ground and visible, lest 
if the Spaniards come peradventure he may prompt 
them to wickedness." So the yellow idol was 
picked up and thrown into the river. Thus did 
these cunning red men seek at once to cajole and to 
baffle the enemy. But it was in vain. In the year 
151 1 came Diego Velasquez, and it was not long 
before poor Hatuey was tied to a stake and fagots 
piled about him. While the flames were licking 
the flesh from his bones, a black-robed priest held 
up the crucifix and begged him to repent of his sins 
and secure a place in heaven. " Where is heaven ? " 
cried Hatuey ; " are there any Spaniards there ? " 
" Yea, many," quoth the priest. " Then," said the 
writhing victim, "pray let me go somewhere else." 

The dismal reputation thus won by the Spaniards, 
when they first took possession of the island of 
Cuba, has been maintained by them to the present 
day, when they are clearly fast losing their hold 
upon it. Here, as in other parts of America, the 
Spanish conquest created a situation which must 
sooner or later become unendurable. Under vary- 
ing circumstances the rule of the Spaniard has nearly 
always been odious, not only to the aboriginal races 
but to the Creoles of his own blood. Not that the 
coming of Spaniards to the New World was every- 
where an unmixed evil. There were quarters where 
they introduced a better state of things than they 
found. In Mexico, for example, there can be no 
doubt that the change from the hideous priests of 
Huitzilopochtli to the noble followers of St. Francis 



Introduction xiii 



and St. Dominic was as welcome as it was salutary. 
Even in Peru, where aboriginal America appears on 
the whole at its best, the rule of the Spanish vice 
roys proved in some respects less oppressive thaa 
that of the Incas. It should further be remembered 
that among the Spaniards who for three centuries 
made up the governing classes in the tropical and 
southern portions of America, not all were tyrants. 
Among them were reckless adventurers, with whom 
all considerations of policy or humanity were lost in 
the ravening thirst for pelf. But there were others 
eminent for virtue and ability, such as the illustrious 
Marquis de Cafiete, who governed Peru so admirably 
in the sixteenth century; or Don Jose de Vertiz, 
the enlightened ruler of Buenos Ayres in the eigh- 
teenth. 

On the whole, however, after making all due 
qualifications, the Spanish system of government in 
America was so thoroughly bad that even in the 
hands of saints it could not have succeeded. It was 
based upon two bad things, commercial monopoly 
and political despotism. As regards the first of 
these, the original purpose of all European states in 
founding colonies beyond sea was to obtain a com- 
mercial monopoly. This was well illustrated in the 
English Navigation Act of 165 1. In order that 
merchants in England might buy Virginia tobacco 
very cheap, the demand for it was restricted by cut- 
ting off the export to foreign markets. In order 
that they might sell their goods to Virginia at exor- 
bitant prices, the Virginians were prohibited from 
buying elsewhere. Similar restrictions were placed 
upon the trade of the other English colonies, and 



xiv Introduction 



the shameless rapacity of the merchants was such as 
might have been expected under such fostering cir- 
cumstances. The effects of this unjust legislation 
are well known. It was potent among the causes 
of Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia, it kept Massa- 
chusetts in a chronic brawl with Charles II., it bred 
fierce discontents in New York, it raised up legions 
of smugglers, it added a fresh lease of life to piracy, 
and it had much to do with the irritation that led to 
our War of Independence. 

The misguided commercial greed exhibited in such 
legislation reminds one of .ZEsop's dog who dropped 
the bone while snatching at its shadow. In the in- 
fancy of modern commerce all nations fell into such 
errors, and Spain was no worse than the rest. But 
the restrictive navigation laws of Spain were always 
more vexatious than those of England, because they 
were much more rigorously and harshly administered. 
Here we come upon the companion evil in Spanish 
colonial rule, its political despotism. If we would 
properly understand the revolt of Spain's colonies, 
we shall do well to compare and contrast it with our 
own revolt against the government of George III. 
The English colonies in America never suffered any- 
thing that could be called oppression, except for a 
brief moment under Berkeley in Virginia and under 
Andros in New England ; but Berkeley's violence 
led to his removal, and the policy which Andros 
tried to enforce was quickly overthrown by a revolu- 
tion in England, so that neither of these instances 
counts for much against the mother country. Our 
forefathers on this side of the Atlantic were not liable 
to arbitrary imprisonment or extortionate taxes, the 



Introduction xv 



privacy of their homes was not invaded, and they 
were free to speak and print their thoughts ; when 
things went wrong they could scold and grumble to 
their hearts' content. They severed their political 
connection with England, not in order to gain new 
liberties, but to guard against the possible risk of 
losing old ones. Far different was it with the people 
of the Spanish colonies at the beginning of the pres- 
ent century. Their government, under viceroys and 
captains general sent out from Spain, was an absolute 
despotism. They were subject to arbitrary and 
oppressive taxation. The people of English Amer- 
ica refused to submit to a very light stamp tax, im- 
posed purely for American interests, to defend the 
frontier against Indian raids ; the people of Spanish 
America saw vast amounts of treasure carried away 
year after year to be spent upon European enterprises 
in which they felt no interest whatever. They had 
no popular assemblies, no habeas corpus acts, no 
freedom of the press. Their houses were not their 
castles, for the minions of the civil and of the spir- 
itual power could penetrate everywhere ; a petty 
quarrel between neighbors might end in dragging 
some of them before the Inquisition, to be tortured 
or put to death for heresy. For that pre-eminently 
Spanish and Satanic institution survived in America 
until two decades of the nineteenth century had 
passed. 

What was the Inquisition ? It was a machine for 
winnowing out and destroying all such individuals as 
surpassed the average in quickness of wit, earnestness 
of purpose, and strength of character, in so far as to 
entertain opinions of their own and boldly declare 



xvi Introduction 



them. The more closely people approached an 
elevated standard of intelligence and moral courage, 
the more likely was the machine to reach them. It 
worked with deadly efficiency, cutting off the bright- 
est and boldest in their early prime, while the duller 
and weaker spirits were spared to propagate the race. 
Thus the ideas and methods which other nations 
were devising to meet the new exigencies of modern 
life were denied admission into Spain. In manu- 
factures, in commerce, in the control of the various 
sources of wealth, she was completely left behind by 
nations from which the minds hospitable toward new 
ideas had not been so carefully weeded out. In 
many respects the atmosphere of thought in Spain 
remains mediaeval even to the present day. In the 
government of her dependencies her methods have 
shown scarcely any improvement since the Middle 
Ages, and it was not strange that the advent of this 
stirring nineteenth century should bring rebellion. 
Some drops of the yeast so plentifully scattered by 
the French Revolution found their way into tropical 
America and set up a ferment in that oppressed 
society. 

The countries first to feel the effects were Vene- 
zuela and New Granada, which were the most acces- 
sible to European ideas from the French and English 
West Indies ; and the temporary overthrow of the 
Spanish monarchy by Napoleon seemed to furnish 
the occasion. The revolution which began in Vene- 
zuela in 1810 was extended to the Argentine states, 
and then across to Chili, until it reached and set free 
Peru in 1824. Meanwhile, Mexico was winning its 
independence, and the pentarchy of Central America 



Introduction xvii 



soon followed. At the same time Florida was pur- 
chased by the United States, so that of all the 
immense transatlantic empire to which Columbus 
had led the way nothing remained in Spanish hands 
save the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico. 

While Cuba has always been highly valued by 
Spain, its importance in the eighteenth century was 
small compared to what it has come to be in recent 
years. In the middle of the century the island 
passed for a moment out of Spanish control. In 
1762 Spain added her arms to those of France, Aus- 
tria, and Russia, in the tremendous war which those 
powers were unsuccessfully waging against Great 
Britain and Prussia. As a result, the English capt- 
ured Havana and held the island practically at their 
mercy, but the treaty of 1763 restored it to Spain in 
exchange for Florida and other important conces- 
sions. 1 It would probably have been far better for 
the interests of civilization and good government in 
Cuba if the island had remained in British hands. 
It is significant that the sanitary condition of Havana 
seems never to have been so well cared for as in 
1762, and the mediaeval restrictions upon trade were 
in a considerable measure relaxed. After this brief 
interval the restoration of Spanish control was a 
reversion to the old state of things. 

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the 
population of the island was about 400,000 souls, 
of whom rather less than half were negro slaves. 
The native Indians had long since been extermi- 
nated. The whites, mostly of Spanish descent, 
lived on their farms and knew next to nothing 

1 In the treaty of 1783 Great Britain restored Florida to Spain. 



xviii Introduction 



about the outside world. No foreign ship could 
touch at a Cuban port. All commerce was pro- 
hibited save with Spain, and thus the market for 
sugar and tobacco was narrow and the production 
small. Cooped up within this legislative Chinese 
wall, the people were densely ignorant. Nearly all 
the products of the soil were consumed where they 
grew, division of labor was scarcely known, and 
there was but little circulation of ideas. Under 
such circumstances it is not strange that the prev- 
alent mental attitude was one of Toryism. A 
dread of horrors like those so near at hand in San 
Domingo may well have aided this conservative 
feeling and helped to prevent Cuba from joining 
in the general revolt against Spain. In 1808, 
when Napoleon deposed the reigning Bourbons, 
the Cuban provincial council resolved unanimously 
to preserve the allegiance of the island to that legiti- 
mate dynasty, and Ferdinand VII. was proclaimed 
king. European events were fast tying Napoleon's 
hands, or this bold action might have called down 
his wrath upon Cuba, even as the heroic career of 
Toussaint Louverture had drawn it down upon San 
Domingo. For such an act of loyalty Cuba came 
to be known as the " Ever Faithful Isle." 

One effect of the French Revolution upon Spain 
was the slow and painful introduction of a few 
modern ideas. Some wholesome warnings of ex- 
perience found their way through the thick panoply 
of dulness that protected Ferdinand VII. against 
wisdom and prosperity. The spirit of revolt had 
become so rife in Spanish America that it was 
thought worth while to reward and perpetuate 



Introduction xix 



Cuba's loyalty by a more liberal policy. Accord- 
ingly in 1 8 13 the ports of the Island were thrown 
open to commerce, and two years afterward the 
government monopoly of tobacco was abolished. 
The Cubans were also allowed to elect representa- 
tives to the Spanish Cortes, but this privilege 
proved to be of small practical use, and was after- 
wards withdrawn. The effects, however, of the 
new commercial policy were astonishing, especially 
upon the growth of tobacco and sugar. Within 
a few years these crops had increased fourfold. 
Between the beginning and the end of the nine- 
teenth century the production of sugar has in- 
creased nearly a hundredfold. Of this huge crop 
scarcely two per cent goes to Spain, while Eng- 
land takes fifteen per cent and the United States 
seventy-five. These figures enable us to realize 
the wonderful expansion consequent upon the 
opening of Cuban ports. Under such conditions 
the population of the island has increased to more 
than a million and a half. The relative proportion 
of negroes has decreased until it is scarcely more 
than one-fourth, and slavery was finally abolished 
in 1886. 

The rapid growth of the " Ever Faithful Isle " 
was in great measure helped by the contemporane- 
ous revolt of the other portions of Spanish America. 
Thousands of native Spaniards who in former times 
would have enjoyed official positions or special busi- 
ness privileges in such countries as Peru, or Buenos 
Ayres, or Venezuela, now found such sources of 
emolument cut off. Consequently this particular 
stream of immigration, which had once overflowed 



xx Introduction 



the whole of Spanish America, became confined to 
Cuba and Porto Rico. These favored immigrants 
in Cuba form the class of " Peninsulars," while the 
native Cuban Creoles are distinguished as the 
" Insulars." At the present time it is supposed 
that about one-fifth of the white people of Cuba 
are Peninsulars, or natives of Spain. They have 
for a long time monopolized the salaried positions 
in church and state and managed all matters of 
public administration to suit themselves. The dis- 
tinction between Creole and European Spaniard is 
maintained as strongly as ever it was in the old 
days of the Viceroys of Lima ; and the political 
connection with the mother country has long been 
used simply to enable one-fifth of the white popu- 
lation to treat the other four-fifths as having no 
rights which are entitled to respect. 

This unwholesome state of things in Cuba has been 
growing up ever since the general revolt of Spanish 
America. The liberal commercial measures of 1 8 13 
and 1 815 were not accompanied bv liberal measures 
in politics. Nothing like real self-government was 
allowed the " Ever Faithful Isle." On the con- 
trary, she was governed by a series of captains gen- 
eral, with powers as despotic as those of the Grand 
Turk. Thus there grew up an antagonism between 
the Peninsulars, with the captain general at their 
head, and the Insulars, who were on all occasions 
made to feel their inferior position ; and, as always 
in such cases, this antagonism was far more venom- 
ous and implacable than that which exists between 
political parties in free countries. The Insulars 
were naturally in favor of a larger measure of self- 



Introduction xxi 



government in which their superiority of numbers 
might enable them to outvote and curb their haughty 
opponents ; on the other hand, the Peninsulars clung 
to Spanish despotism as their chief refuge and de- 
fence. On such lines have the hostile parties been 
developing for the past eighty years. 

During this period the Insulars or liberal party 
have been getting the rudiments of political educa- 
tion by observing what has gone on in the republics 
of Spanish America and in the United States. Peo- 
ple in their situation have no opportunities for 
gaining political experience of the kind with which 
all English-speaking countries are familiar. They 
start with a few general political ideas and have no 
means of testing their value save by insurrection. 
The first task is to overthrow the oppressor, and 
every patriot of this way of thinking is sure to be 
"agin" the government. Between 1820 and 1830 
there were several attempts at rebellion in Cuba, 
fomented by such secret societies as the " Soles de 
Bolivar," the " Black Eagle," and others ; but these 
premature outbreaks were quickly suppressed. The 
chief immediate result was the tightening of the des- 
potic control of the captains general. The govern- 
ment was one of martial law, even in times of peace. 
The unfortunate conspiracy of 1844, for complicity 
with which the Cuban poet Placido was executed, 
and the ill-starred expeditions of Narciso Lopez in 
1849 an< ^ 1 8 5 1 , bear witness at once to the abiding 
spirit of discontent among the people and to the 
superior strength which a better organization gave 
to the oppressors. 

From 1851 to 1868 the smouldering fires found 



xxii Introduction 



little chance for breaking into flame. The revolu- 
tion of September, 1868, which drove Queen Isabella 
II. from Spain, furnished an occasion of which the 
Insularswere not slow to avail themselves. On Oc- 
tober 10 the independence of Cuba was proclaimed 
by Carlos de Cespedes, who soon had a force of 
15,000 men marching under his orders. In the fol- 
lowing April a congress, assembled at the town of 
Guaymaro, framed a republican constitution for 
Cuba and elected Cespedes president. Mexico and 
several states of South America at once recognized 
the Cubans as belligerents, and within two months 
Peru recognized them as an independent power. 

The war thus begun lasted nearly ten years, until 
it was brought to an end by the treaty or capitula- 
tion of El Zanjon in 1878. It is known as the Ten 
Years' War. For the first two years the revolu- 
tionary forces seemed to have the advantage, but 
their cause was ruined by contentions and misunder- 
standings arising from the interference of the civil 
power with the military. The broth was spoiled 
by too many cooks, and the single-willed- despot 
was enabled to score a triumph over the many- 
headed King Demos. In 1873 the Congress de- 
posed Cespedes and elected in his place Salvador 
Cisneros, the same who again was president during 
Mr. Flint's stay in Cuba in 1896. Some mystery 
hangs over the circumstances of the death of Ces- 
pedes in 1874, but he seems to have been murdered 
by Spaniards. 

The Ten Years' War was a terrible drain upon 
the resources of the government at Madrid. More 
than 150,000 troops were sent over from Spain, and 



Introduction xxiii 



of these more than 80,000 are said to have found 
their graves in Cuba. The revolutionary forces were 
always much smaller than their antagonists, as well as 
inferior in arms and equipments ; besides which, the 
Spanish navy controlled the water. The only pru- 
dent strategy for the insurgents was the Fabian kind 
that avoids pitched battles, a tedious policy, but apt 
to be highly effective in the long run. What the 
Cubans accomplished by such methods and by guer- 
illa warfare was extremely encouraging. The net 
result of the Ten Years' War afforded good ground 
for the opinion that they might try the experiment 
of revolution once more with strong hopes of suc- 
cess. 

That they would try it again could hardly be doubt- 
ful. The capitulation of El Zanjon was achieved 
only through the understanding that abuses were to 
be reformed. The first article of the document im- 
plicitly concedes to Cubans representation in the 
Cortes at Madrid. From such a concession further 
reforms were expected to follow. It was clear 
enough that nothing short of effective reform could 
prevent the renewal of revolution. No such reform 
was secured. As far as representation at Madrid 
was concerned, that was soon rendered a nullity by 
the Peninsulars contriving to get control of the polls 
and prevent the election of any but their own men. 
It is said that of the 30 deputies chosen in 1896, 
all but four were natives of Spain. Bearing this 
in mind, let us note some other features of political 
reform, as conceived by the Spanish mind. The 
power of the captain general had been absolute. In 
1895 an attempt was made to limit it by providing 



xxiv Introduction 



him with a council of 30 members, of whom 15 were 
to be appointed by the Crown and 15 were to be 
elected by the people. Of course the same influence 
over elections which made representation at Madrid 
a mere farce would control the choice of councillors. 
It might safely be assumed that at least 10 of the 15 
would be the abettors or the pliant tools of the cap- 
tain general. But to guard against any possible 
failure on this point, the captain general can " sus- 
pend " members who oppose him, until he has sus- 
pended 14 of the 30. If even then he cannot get a 
majority to uphold him, he is not yet at the end of 
his resources. Far from it. There is another ad- 
visory body, called the " council of authorities." Its 
members are the Archbishop of Santiago, the Bishop 
of Havana, the chief justice, the attorney general, 
the chief of the finance bureau, the director of local 
administration, and the commanders of the military 
and naval forces. 1 Armed with the consent of these 
advisers, who are pretty certain to be all of them 
Peninsulars, our captain general goes back to his 
refractory council and " suspends " all that is left of 
it. Then, like Wordsworth's river, he "wanders 
at his own sweet will." 

Now one of the duties of this wonderful council 
was to regulate taxation and expenditures. So it 
made its budget, and if the captain general was satis- 
fied with it, very well ; if not, he just set it aside and 
did as he pleased. As Caliban would say, " As it 
likes me each time I do : so He ! " After this, it 
need not surprise us to be told that each province 

1 For a more detailed account see Rowan and Ramsey, "The Island of Cuba," 
New York, 1897. 



Introduction xxv 



in Cuba has its elected representative assembly, 
which the autocrat at Havana may suspend at his 
pleasure ; or that the island is abundantly supplied 
with courts, whose decisions he is at full liberty to 
overrule. We learn next, as a matter of course, that 
if you write a book or pamphlet containing criti- 
cisms of the autocrat or his policy, you cannot get it 
printed ; or if you are an editor and publish such pes- 
tilent stuff in your paper, he forthwith claps you into 
durance vile, and confiscates a part or the whole of 
your balance at the bank. Political meetings as 
such cannot be held. Clubs for charitable purposes 
or for social entertainment may meet after due notice 
given the autocrat, so that he may be present himself 
or send his spies ; then let the teller of anecdotes, 
the maker of jests, and the singer of songs keep the 
tongue well guarded, lest the company be dispersed 
before supper and the neighboring jail receive new 
inmates. 

In such apolitical atmosphere corruption thrives. 
A planter's estate is entered upon the assessor's lists 
as worth $50,000; the collector comes along and 
demands a tax based upon an assumed value of 
$70,000 ; the planter demurs, but presently thinks 
it prudent to compromise upon a basis of $60,000. 
No change is made in the published lists, but the 
collector slips into his own pocket the tax upon 
$10,000, and goes on his way rejoicing. Thus the 
planter is robbed while the Government is cheated. 
And this is a fair specimen of what goes on through- 
out all departments of administration. From end to 
end the whole system is honeycombed with fraud. 

The people of Cuba would not be worthy of our 



xxvi Introduction 



respect if they were capable of submitting tamely to 
such wholesale oppression and pillage. They are to 
be commended for the spirit of resistance which 
showed itself in the Ten Years' War ; and it is much 
to their credit that, after repeated proof of the hope- 
lessness of any peaceful reform, they have once more 
risen in rebellion. It was early in 1895 that the 
present war broke out. To attempt to forecast its 
results would be premature. It is already obvious, 
however, that Spain's grasp upon the island is con- 
siderably weaker than before. She had not recovered 
from the strain of the Ten Years' War when the 
present struggle began. Stimulated to extraordinary 
efforts by the dread of revolution at home in the 
event of ill success, the Spanish government has 
shown desperate energy. Never before have such 
large armies been sent beyond sea. Such armies, 
however, are not worth their cost unless they can 
find and crush the enemy, and thus far the Fabian 
generalship of Gomez has defied them successfully. 
A lesson has been learned from the Ten Years' War, 
for this shrewd and far-sighted leader accepted the 
chief command on condition that he should be free 
from all interference on the part of the civil author- 
ities. The problem before him is, while avoiding 
battles against heavy odds, to keep up hostilities 
until Spain's ability to borrow money comes to an 
end. In such a policy he has much reason to hope 
for success. 

The recent offer of autonomy to Cuba wears all 
the appearance of a last card played by Spain in 
distress. It is made in the hope of dividing the 
revolutionists into two parties of moderates and 



Introduction xxvii 



irreconcilables ; but the few particulars thus far 
made public indicate that the card is not skilfully 
played, that the semblance of autonomy offered is 
too palpably deceptive. The attitude of Gomez, 
if it is correctly reported, seems to show that he 
realizes that, while there are many occasions in 
life in which compromises and half-measures are 
desirable, the present is not one of them. 

For the sake of Cuba's best interests, it is to be 
hoped that she will win her independence without 
receiving from any quarter, and especially from the 
United States, any such favors as might hereafter 
put her in a position of tutelage or in any wise 
hamper her freedom of action. All people liber- 
ated from the blight of Spanish dominion need to 
learn the alphabet of free government. Cuba will 
have to learn it, as all the rest of Spanish America 
has had to learn it, and the fewer the impediments 
in her way the better. Undue influence on the 
part of powerful neighbors is sure to be such an 
impediment. 

One often hears arguments based on the assump- 
tion that Spanish Americans are congenitally unfit 
for political liberty; and the numerous convulsions 
of the present century in Mexico and South America 
are cited in point. But it is easy to reason loosely 
in such matters ; and unless our vision covers some- 
what longer ranges of time, our reasoning is sure to 
be loose. For example, it is a maxim at the pres- 
ent day that Frenchmen are politically unstable 
and really do not know what kind of government 
they want ; while Englishmen, on the other hand, 
are the very type of stability and satisfied conserva- 



xxviii Introduction 



tism. There has been no violent change of govern- 
ment in England for more than two centuries, while 
on the other hand since 1792 France has had at least 
eight such changes. The contrast seems conclusive. 
But if we go back a century and a half, to the days 
when Voltaire and Diderot were in their prime, we 
find just the opposite opinion current. Then it was 
the English who were said to be incurably fickle in 
politics, while the French were steady and conserva- 
tive. Since the tenth century France had never de- 
posed a king, whereas the English had unseated 
five, three of whom were first deposed and then 
secretly murdered, one was publicly beheaded, and 
one driven into exile. In the seventeenth century 
England was a monarchy, a commonwealth under 
the Rump Parliament, a protectorate under Crom- 
well, a headless body under Monk and the army, 
then a monarchy again, then a monarchy put into 
commission. Could anything ever make an Eng- 
lishman satisfied with his government ? 

With such an example before us, we may well 
pause before concluding that because the liberation 
of Spanish America has been attended with crude 
experiments in self-government and occasional catas- 
trophes, therefore it is an immutable decree of 
Providence that no people are fit to govern them- 
selves except those who speak English. Our high 
political capacity is the fruit of slow ages of disci- 
pline under favoring circumstance, and similar ac- 
quisition, on the part of any people whatever, must 
likewise be the result of discipline. The first step 
is the removal of obstacles ; and the Spanish method 
of governing dependencies, a belated relic of medi- 



Introduction xxix 



asvalism, is an anomaly that cannot be too soon 
removed. All honor to the men who shall succeed 
in dealing its deathblow ! 

The visit of my son-in-law, Mr. Grover Flint, to 
Cuba, early in 1896, was made with the purpose of 
obtaining correct information as to what was going 
on in the island. A brief stay at Havana was 
enough to assure him that the information received 
in that city was likely to be anything but correct. 
He therefore made up his mind to break away and 
visit the insurgents, in order to satisfy himself by 
ocular inspection as to the various points upon which 
he wished to be informed. Some experience of life 
on the Plains as a soldier in the United States army 
had prepared him for the kind of adventures in- 
volved in the undertaking, and he had lived in Spain 
long enough to become familiar with the language, 
as well as with Spanish ideas and mental habits. 
Under these circumstances, and with exceptional 
opportunities for observation, he gathered the ma- 
terials for the narrative which follows ; in which his 
purpose has been to tell the " plain unvarnished 
tale" of what he saw and heard. 

John Fiske. 

Christmas, 1897. 



SEARCHING FOR 
60AEZ 




Marching with Gomez 



Chapter I 
A Pacifico Household 




%iMU\k- 



A.~xy~- 



SNUG in a grove of bushy, green poplars lay 
a neat, one-storied Cuban homestead, Anda- 
lusian in style, with white " dobe " walls, an 
old-fashioned, red pot-tiled roof, and broad, 
shady porches. From a wing that gave an open 
side on the main building where it faced the west, 
a curl of bluish smoke rose among the trees, and a 
lean old negress, turbaned like a Southern mammy, 

3 



4 Marching with Gomez 

bustled at her cooking. Fat geese waddled in and 
out of the cook-house in search of scraps, while a 
family of peacocks, perched over a tumble-down 
farm wagon, were scarcely awake after the heat of 
a long afternoon. There was peace and rest about 
the place, as if fire and machete would never sweep 
from the distant highway to the little home among 
the poplars. 

On the east porch, away from the murmur of the 
kitchen and the stir of farmyard creatures, a gray- 
headed, gray-bearded, powerfully built old gentle- 
man, with a complexion burned and dried by sun 
and wind, bent over a table painting, with hair pen- 
cil and a colorless fluid, leaves of written paper. A 
little girl hung on his shoulder, taking the leaves in 
turn and placing them where the sun's slanting rays 
and the heat given off by the earth might quickly 
dry them. Then a new writing loomed out on each 
sheet, and the old man read secret instructions from 
the revolutionary Junta in Havana to be transmitted 
to troops in the field. 

Just within the open doorway the Senor-a and her 
elder daughter, Gloria, in broad white kerchiefs and 
black stuff dresses, busied themselves at sewing ; 
while a boy of twelve sat swinging his feet in an 
American cane chair, playing at invalid with his left 
arm in a sling from a wound by a Spanish bullet. 

Such was a pacifico household not many leagues 
out of Cardenas, which I surprised late on the after- 
noon of March 25, 1896, by squirming through the 
barbed wire fence of the pasture. 

A ripping of tweed cloth, as I disengaged myself 
from the wires, brought a giggle from the little girl, 



A Pacifico Household 5 

and a quick glance from the old man, who rose and 
advanced to meet me. " Caramba, senor, you have 
dropped from the clouds ! Whence do you come, 
sir, that you do not travel by the roads ? " he asked, 
scanning me closely. My explanation that I was an 
American correspondent, anxious to join the rebels, 
and had footed it across country from the railroad 
track leading to Recreo, seemed to reassure him, 
although, saving my passport, I bore no credentials. 
Faith and courtesy are instinctive with Cubans of 
the better class. 

" Your face is a guarantee," he said thoughtfully, 
and I was "in my house" at once. 

The ladies came from within and greeted me 
with polite curiosity. I must be fatigued by my 
long walk. I must rest myself. A guest was an 
event, now that the country was dangerous, and I 
must be cared for. While I attempted to answer 
these friendly solicitations, the old gentleman dis- 
appeared, boldly leaving his cipher despatches un- 
concealed. Presently he returned with a flask of 
Cognac and two little glasses, — copitas, — and we 
drank to better times. The yellow liquor was low 
in the bottle, seeming to indicate the frugality of 
my host's circumstances. 

Then I showed my new friends a "Detente" that 
was given me, with wishes for good luck, before I 
left Cardenas. It was a little, scalloped strip of white 
flannel, embroidered in silk with a crimson heart, 
a green cross, and a scroll of leaves, and the motto 
" Detente ! El corazon de Jesus esta conmigo." (Be 
of good cheer ! The heart of Jesus is with me.) 
It was a simple insurgent emblem, such as the busy 



Marching with Gomez 



little fingers of the faithful Cuban maidens in Car- 
denas stitch in numbers to be sent out secretly to 

brothers, sweethearts, 
and cousins in the 
Manigua — " in the 
woods," as the Cu- 
bans term life in the 
insurgent ranks. I 
had pinned it on my 
shirt ; — who could 
fail with such a talis- 
man? — and I think it 
increased the ladies' 
trust in a stranger. 
The members of the 
family evidently felt 
no further anxiety on 
my score ; for they 
resumed their occu- 
pations, leaving me 
, . , . to mv cig;ar. 

"A simple insurgent emblem. a " T A 

As 1 rested, on trie 
hospitable porch, red beams of the setting sun tinged 
the green of marsh and canebrake, and lingered on 
the foot-hills that rose half a league away between 
us and the sea. Darkness fell by degrees, and, ex- 
cepting sounds from the cook-house, the stillness 
was unbroken. Then yellow beeswax candles were 
lighted, and we gathered in the main room, where I 
took my first supper outside the Spanish lines. 

The supper was a simple " mess " of beef and 
sweet-potatoes. It was served on a rough deal 
table, by an elderly man-servant, who addressed the 




A Pacifico Household 7 

members of the family with " thee " and " thou," and 
loitered benignantly in the room while we ate. It 
was a sombre room, darkened by heavy old furni- 
ture, — a black-walnut wardrobe, an upright desk, 
a case of gloomy old books, and a few high-backed 
chairs of unvarnished oak. The plastered walls, 
except where our distorted shadows blackened them, 
shone yellow in the taper light, with an effect like a 
Rembrandt picture. Only two bits of color enliv- 
ened the walls, — a tinted engraving of the Virgin in 
a gilt frame, and an illuminated calendar of Saints' 
Days and holy festivals for the year 1895, as 
announced by the Bishop of Havana. 

After supper, as a substitute for the luxury of 
coffee, small cups of guarapo — sugar dissolved in 
heated water — were served with cigarettes ; in which 
Gloria and her mother joined us. 

My host was a doctor of medicine and a man of 
attainments, with the proud elegance of manner of 
the old school. We talked of belligerency and possi- 
ble intervention by the United States. I listened to 
the little boy's story, how, while riding a pet donkey 
from a pasture near the railroad track, a train had 
passed and soldiers had practised their marksman- 
ship from the armored cars, shattering his arm and 
killing the donkey. 

So the evening passed. When the ladies with- 
drew, I stepped out into the night to a shed that 
formed part of the kitchen and watched the negro 
farm-hands grind cane by torchlight on a hand 
crusher, and boil the sap to make sugar : some for 
use in the family, some for the local Cuban guer- 
illa. Then to bed in a guest chamber adjacent to 



Marching with Gomez 



the cook-house, with a door that closed only when 
you propped it with a heavy beam. 

In the quiet of my little room, with only the 
moving of a night breeze through a window in 
which there was no glass — there never is glass in 
Cuba — I slept peacefully until the barking of dogs 
brought the remembrance of war and danger. 
Some one had arrived and was talking earnestly with 
my host, and I heard a clink, as if the flask of 
Cognac was doing honor to another guest. Then 
came a soft beating of horses' hoofs that presently 
died away in the distance, and all was quiet again 
until daybreak. 

The significance of this incident became apparent 
when my host awoke me with a morning cup of 
guarapo. He disturbed me early, he said, because 
he had learned that a Spanish column was prepar- 
ing to move through the district, and I had best 
pass the day in a place of safety. 

Taking my grip, Pablo, the family servant, led 
me by a blind path among the canes to a little 
bayou that reached far into the swamp " for many 
miles," he said. A rough, flat boat lay partly in the 
lily pads, partly on the soft bank, and we embarked, 
poling down stream for, perhaps, two hundred yards, 
to a spot where a group of palm trees grew from an 
island, offering a cool shelter from the sun. 

A young man in a freshly washed linen suit was 
there swinging comfortably in his hammock, be- 
tween a palm and a clump of bamboo, and rolling 
cigarettes. He wore a rebel cockade on his hat, his 
pistol and machete hung in easy reach, and his muz- 



A Pacifico Household 



zle-loading shotgun rested against the palm trunk. 
He was the first insurgent soldier I had met. He 
had ridden the country all night and was resting in 
security for the day. His horse, he told me, was 
browsing among the canes near the farmhouse I 
had left. Pablo had brought a basket of cold beef 
and potatoes, and the water was clear and sweet, 




"Swinging comfortably in his hammock. ' ' 

"though dangerous for Spaniards — it gave them a 
fever," he said, so I was left with my insurgent to 
spend the day. 

I sketched my friend and shared his cigarettes, 
then we napped, he in his hammock, I in the shift- 
ing shade of the palms, until noon, when we heard 
the train, puffing and wheezing in the distance, on 
the railroad track by which I had come out the day 
before. We heard a shot, too, but only one, and 
knew that some soldier had shot at a crow, a vul- 



io Marching with Gomez 

ture, or, perhaps, a stray cow. Then, as the after- 
noon wore on, dark clouds with showers of rain 
blew down from the north, and just in time to 
save us a drenching, Pablo's bark glided down the 
bayou, to take us back for supper. The weather 
was to be bad, and there was no longer danger of 
soldiers. 

News passes mysteriously and swiftly among the 
patriot brotherhood. After supper that evening, — 
and a fitfully stormy evening it was, — there came a 
quick slapping of unshod hoofs outside in the wet 
grass, and four well-armed, neatly dressed insurgents 

— one of them with the stars of a captain on his 
cross-belt — reined up and dismounted by the door. 
1 hey led an extra horse for the correspondent, and 
after a farewell feast of cigarettes and guarapo, I bade 
an all-around good-by. On parting, as a practical 
keepsake, my host gave me a jicara, — a polished 
cocoanut shell such as they use for cups in the field, 

— through a hole in which the Senorita Gloria 
knotted a cord, that it might hang easily from my 
belt. Then I swung up with the rest and rode off 
in the darkness, noticing that my companions placed 
me in the middle ; two riding single file ahead and 
two behind. 

I was at length safe under the wing of the insur- 
rection, far safer than the members of the family 
that had received me so kindly, though I did not 
realize this fully as the warm light from their open 
shutters dimmed in the distance. I was soon to 
learn that in western Cuba the only approach to 
safety lay in the insurgent field, and that all country 



A Pacifico Household 



it 



people, who remained in their houses, were as host- 
ages to the enemy. 

I do not mention my kind old host's name for 
many and obvious reasons. Desolation came to his 
home at last, and some months ago he fell under 
the machete while defending a field hospital. 

Whether the Senorita Gloria, with her widowed 
mother, her brother, and her little sister, met out- 
rage and death, or are herded, a starving family 
group, among the fever-stricken concentrados in 
some pestilential seaport town, I have never learned. 




Chapter II 
Savanas Nuevas 

BANKS of clouds obscured the moon, and 
cool showers blew in from the sea as we 
zigzagged by guarda-rayas l in the canefields, 
and through the tall moist grass of the past- 
ures, up a hilly trail into the forest. Sometimes as 




10-M1LES 



"Savanas Nuevas lies among the scrubby foothills of the coast, surrounded by 
swamps and mountains. You approach it by a blind trail that winds from 
the valley for nearly a league among the forests. Twenty well-armed men 
could hold that trail against a Spanish regiment." (Letter to Journal, April, 
1896.) 

we passed a clearing and the shadowy outline of a 
peasant's hut, dogs awoke and bayed until we were 
out of hearing. Once as we splashed through a 

1 Guarda-rayas ; aisles or passages for marking sections and carrying off cut cane. 



Savanas Nuevas 13 



deep pool, a great white bird arose and floated, 
spirit-like, into the night ahead of us. We rode 
silently for perhaps an hour, slipping about in 
the mud on up grades, and trotting when our path 
offered a level, until a sharp challenge, " Alto ! 
Ouien va ? (Halt! Who goes?)" brought us to 
a stop. " Cuba, " shouted the captain. 

" Avanze uno ! (Advance one !) " came from the 
mysterious sentry in the bush. Then our captain 
jogged forward a dozen paces with the pass-word, 
and called for us to follow. 

We were now past the pickets in a permanent 
Cuban camp. From constant chopping of hoofs, 
the path was deep and heavy, while every wind 
brought to the nostrils a stench of dead cattle that 
mist and rain could not beat down. Boughs of 
trees struck my face, and I hung forward in the 
saddle, letting my mount flounder after the others 
without guidance, through criss-cross, gully-like 
paths and clumps of clinging foliage. So on for 
a bewildered interval, guarding my head with my 
right elbow from showers of drops and swaying 
branches, and clutching my horse with the " full 
leg," till I felt the sharp play of his forehand 
muscles, when a sudden turn brought us into a 
circle of light, and we reined up before a low rancho, 
where pale figures stood about a sputtering camp- 
fire, poking and feeding it. One, taller than the 
rest, turned and stepped toward us. 

" Dismount," said the tall insurgent, as he singled 
me from my companions and advanced with ex- 
tended hand. It was Juan Jose Andarje, major of 
the force, and he welcomed me to Savanas Nuevas. 



14 Marching with Gomez 

It was too wet for conversation. Andarje gave 
up to me a couch of saplings under the eaves of his 
rancho, and took himself somewhere else for the 
night. He lighted a short taper, sticking a bit of 
twig cross-wise in the wax just below the flame, — a 
Mambi : trick to prevent its blowing out. 

By this flickering candle-light I got my bearings, 
and stepped under the low roof, dodging and duck- 
ing to avoid the pistols, rifles, and despatch boxes 
that hung everywhere from above. My couch was 
of branches, with an old coat rolled up, old pieces 
of blanket, and empty saddle-bags for cushions. A 
bulky form snored on a similar cot opposite me. 
Between the snoring soldier and myself were three 
hammocks, slung from the rustic trusses overhead, 
near enough to each other to bump when occupied. 
They were for the captain and two lieutenants under 
Andarje, who, taking advantage of the light, came 
in after me. 

The feeble flame threatened to go out in every 
gust of wind ; so taking off my soggy boots, and 
wrapping my feet in my damp covert coat, I -turned 
in. With sheath knife and six-shooter wrapped in 
my broad-brimmed felt sombrero, and tucked pil- 
low-wise under my head, I dropped off to sleep, 
wondering if dawn would prove my new friends 
cut-throats and brigands, as Prince Iturbide, and 
some acquaintances, friends of the Spanish legation, 
had described them to me at the Metropolitan Club 
in Washington. 

1 Mambi : a term implying savage and uncouth origin, equivalent to "Digger- 
Indian," bestowed on the insurgents by the Spaniards during the last war. The 
word, however, pleased the rebels' sense of humor, and they now, jokingly, if not 
seriously, apply it to themselves as a nickname. 



Savanas Nuevas 



1 5 




The sun of March 27th rose bright and clear, 
and Antonio, the staff cook, a merry, stumpy little 
rebel, was up with the 
birds, noisily heating a 
can of guarapo. The 
hammocks beside me 
were empty, so I pulled 
on my boots 
out to dry thei 
ashes of the cook-f 

Then Camarioca, 
Andarje's big negro 
asistente, 1 brought me 
a fat juicy sugar-cane, 
and taught me how to whittle the bark from the 
bottom up, and carve it into white, nutritious 
sections, — a fine cool substitute for bread. 

Antonio was fanning a bundle of green sticks to 
a flame with his hat, and I sat down on a muddy 
palm log by his fire, to warm my feet 



and went #|*f^l^ 

em in the %^ ^M !* A 
ook-fire. ^&^<PW- 3 \\ M T&* 



JL-*.- 






' 'Antonio, the staff cook. ' ' 




An official rack for saddles. 

and look about me. The clearing was scarcely a 
dozen yards across, and mist still hung in the trees 
about us. A sapling, bent horizontally from a notch 

1 Asistente : an officer's orderly, or servant. 



1 6 Marching with Gomez 

hip-high in its trunk, formed a rack for saddles and 
bridles, protected by bits of oiled cloth, cracked and 
worn, but glistening with a fringe of drops. 

About us horses stood tethered among the trees, 
anywhere and everywhere, feeding on cogollo (pro- 
nounced coyo), — rich leaves of the sugar-cane, fresh 
cut by the camp servants in the swamps where it 
grows wild; — and a sorry, sore-backed lot of nags 
they were, though tough and tireless, I soon found 
out, as our own American bronchos. 

The rancho in which I had spent the night was 
a neat specimen of foresters' architecture, built of 
dead boughs, interlaced and fastened with tawny 
strips of the inner bark of the Majana, that fur- 
nishes the Mambis with a natural cordage strong as 
hemp. The thatch of broad palm leaves was faded 
and brown, — it was just beginning to throw off vapor 
under the sun's increasing rays. The ridgepole was 
braced between two royal palms, appropriate in dig- 
nity to a staff-headquarters ; so tall that you strained 
your neck looking up at them. 

My stout, snoring " bunkie," of the night before, 
who had occupied the cot opposite me, in our 
rancho, crawled out into the sunlight and dipped up 
a steaming jicara of guarapo. Then he sat down 
beside me. It was the cook's domain, where only 
distinguished guests, officers, and their orderlies 
were allowed to loaf or stretch and shake them- 
selves in the early morning. 

Andarje and his officers being already up and 
away, my neighbor introduced himself as Lieuten- 
ant Herrera, an aide-de-camp of Gomez, tempora- 
rily attached to the force. He was a tall, amiable 



Savanas Nuevas 



17 



young man with a blonde moustache, very fat and 
pink in spite of field life. 
His first remark was that I 
looked as though I had got 
wet the night before. He en- 
vied me a bath, — he hadn't 
had even a respectable face- 
wash himself for a month, 
he who was accustomed to 
his tub and soap every 
morning in Havana. 

Continuing his confi- 
dences, Herrera told me 
that he had got lost 
some weeks before while sent on 
a commission by the commander- 
in-chief, and had wandered in 
peril, dodging troops and guerilla 
bands. On one occasion his 
guide was shot at his side, and 
he barely escaped by hiding him- 
self in a canefield. Gomez had 
marched suddenly eastward, and 
Herrera was awaiting his return ; 
for Rumor, who always laid out 
Gomez' plans for him in advance, 
had it that he was about to at- 
tack Havana. Herrera thought 
that if I meant to join Gomez, I 
had better settle down and wait 
for him to come our way. Then 
Herrera asked me if I would like to see the gen- 
eral's handwriting, and he went back under the 




Accustomed to his tub 
and soap every morn- 
ing in Havana. ' ' 



Marching with Gomez 



rancho, where his despatch box hung, and proudly 
brought me his commission, nicely inscribed on 
foolscap and signed Maximo Gomez. 

Herrera went on to explain that life at Savanas 
Nuevas was beastly dull. In the Manigua one 
rarely spent two nights in the same place ; but 
this was a permanent hospital camp, for the sick 
and wounded of forces skirmishing about the dis- 
trict, and the guard was strong enough to protect 

it in case of attack, or 
at least hold the passes 
until the patients 
might be removed to 
»1|P some point of safety 
deeper in the forest. 
Savanas Nuevas was 
also a sort of mail 
station, where Couriers 
stopped to change 
horses, or get news of 
forces operating about 
northern Matanzas. 
When we had emptied our jicaras, Camarioca and 
two other asistentes came up, grinning, for their 
share, and drained the can. Then Antonio, the 
cook, sat down beside us and rolled himself a ciga- 
rette with the air of a man who has done a good 
morning's work. I therefore inferred that the Mam- 
bis took no early breakfast (in which I was correct), 
so I strolled off to see the camp with Herrera. 

Paths cut through the jungle with machetes di- 
verged in every direction, winding snakelike about 
an occasional royal palm. They were rough paths, 




Dr. Dominguez at work. 



Savanas Nuevas 



>9 



where your toe stubbed against sharp stumps of sap- 
lings, or caught in muddy roots of tropical vines. 
They led past camp-fires and groups of ranchos, 
smaller than our own, and were sure to end in a bog, 
or a pool of slimy water. All this woodland was 
the property of Andarje's father, 
a well-to-do peasant proprietor 
of the neighborhood. 

A frequent feature of the 
humbler ranchos was a 
cow skin, hairy side 
down, slung over the 
ridgepole, — a valued 
addition, Herrera ex- 
plained to me, because 
it would turn the c , 
heaviest rain, and jf|| 
in the heat of the 
day collect to itself 
th? swarming flies. 

The occupants of these habitations of the rank 
and file were mostly at home, some still sleeping 
under cover, some kindling fires and cutting rations 
of fresh meat into strips for the midday meal, some 
greasing their rifles and revolvers after the moisture 
of the day before. Most of them, scantily clad in 
ragged cotton clothing, exposed skin swarthy as 
bronze under every rent; though some appeared 
proudly in white linen coats, freshly washed by 
pacifiquita 1 admirers of the valley. No two hats were 
alike ; some were brimless, and the best of them had 

1 Feminine, diminutive of pacijico, frequently used by the Cubans as is Cubanita, 
in addressing attractive young ladies. 




The Parilla. 



20 Marching with Gomez 

an obviously home-made look. They were a courte- 
ous, genial lot of outlaws, and passed the time of 
day cheerily as we strolled along. 

In a remote clearing, where the odor of camp 
offal and the swarm of insects attracted by it were 
less evident, we came upon the field hospital, and 
Herrera presented me with appropriate formality to 
Francisco Dominguez, M.D., of Havana, the sur- 
geon in charge. 

Dr. Dominguez was a busy little man, second in 
importance only to Andarje himself. 

I saw his patients. They were each under a 
separate rancho, cool, among leafy paths trodden 
only by their attendants. There were eight of 
them, some uncertain of life and some convalesc- 
ing, — and some very picturesque machete and 
gunshot wounds there were. Although proper 
medicines were extremely scarce, Dominguez man- 
aged to patch up the wounded with rags and 
diluted carbolic acid, trusting largely in merciful 
nature to do the rest. 

At the one entrance of the camp was the picket 
guard ; a score of powerful blacks, Orientales, like 
the infantry of Quintin Bandera, who had followed 
Maceo from the extreme east of the Island and had 
been lately incorporated in Andarje's force. 

Four or five of these negroes had wives, very 
dusky females, barefooted and scantily attired, who 
squatted about, doing the cooking for their hus- 
bands and their particular friends. Sentry duty on 
the one approach from the valley was entrusted to 
these " buffalo-soldiers," who, like the marines on 
a warship, were constantly on guard, and no one 



Savanas Nuevas 



21 



was allowed to leave camp without a written pass 
from the officer of the day. Though illiterate, they 
possessed all the keen observation of the illiterate, 
and could recognize their officers' signatures if they 
could not read them. 

These men were as ragged as any I had ever seen. 
Some had on scarcely more than a gunny-sack, held 
about the loins by 




a cartridge belt, 
with the merest 
remnant of a 
shirt, or pair of 
trousers. Some 
were bareheaded, 
but all were 
happy enough, 
continually grin- 
ning, and show- 
ing their ivory 
teeth and white 
eyeballs. Their 
duties were light, 
for they walked 
post for only an hour in turn, and spent the rest of 
the time simply existing. 

In this part of the camp, cattle brought from the 
valley were killed and butchered anywhere among 
the trees. Sanitation, by the way, had no part in 
Andarje's discipline. No attempt was made to burn 
hide or entrails, and the refuse accumulated to dry 
and bleach in the sun, reminding us, even at head- 
quarters, of its presence with every shift of the wind. 

Breakfast for the staff was waiting when we got 



Some insurgents and their weapons. 



22 Marching with Gomez 

back to the rancho. Strips of freshly killed steer 
were roasting on the parilla, a gridiron-like structure 
of green sticks, built over the fire, while an iron camp 
kettle — a luxury of rank, and the only one to be 
seen in Savanas Nuevas — nestled in the embers 
below, bubbling and boiling with a mess of sweet- 
potatoes. We helped ourselves and ate with sheath- 
knives and fingers, on bits of clean white palm bark, 
that served as plates. Dr. Dominguez joined us 
with the contribution of an unripe orange, which 
we shared, each man squeezing some of its juice on 
his meat as seasoning ; for salt is almost unknown 
in the Manigua. 

Andarje, who had returned from the valley, 
brought from his saddle-bags some long brown 
cigarettes, saved for a special occasion, and comfort 
was complete. 

The siesta habit is easily acquired in the tropics. 
Even on a march, you often grow drowsy in the 
saddle under the noonday heat, until white spots 
chase over the landscape ; unless a freshening sense 
of danger comes to quicken the pulse and clear the 
head. Herrera had the habit to perfection, and 
examples are contagious ; so I crawled under the 
rancho where there was rest from the buzzing flies 
and the rays of the sun. 

Dinner was similar to breakfast, though the com- 
pany was less, for the staff in active commission 
had gone to scout the plain below. For Domin- 
guez, Herrera, and myself the evening wore on in 
idleness, talking town life, clubs, and theatres, and 
listening to the howling and beating of sticks, with 







> 







24 Marching with Gomez 

which the Orientales of the guard accompanied 
their dances until dark. Herrera's nature was 
peaceful and pleasure-loving. He looked anxiously 
for the day when he might ride into Havana with 
the "Liberating Army " and sit down at ease once 
more in his own club ; but this he was never to do. 
He died a month later in Santa Clara, from the ac- 
cidental discharge of a rifle. 

Night came gratefully after the long day, with 
clear moonlight and cool breezes. Then strange 
birds sang. Queer raccoon-like animals called 
jutias peered with sparkling eyes from the low 
treetops, and great land-crabs scurried into their 
holes at the approach of a shadow. There was 
silence everywhere, and the commonplace swamp 
forest of the day became a fairyland. 

The force stationed at Savanas Nuevas consisted 
of twenty mounted armados, carrying Remington 
carbines, captured Spanish Mausers, Winchester 
repeaters, even three or four old-fashioned shot- 
guns. Some wore revolvers of more or less ancient 
pattern and questionable efficiency. There were 
fifteen mounted asistentes, including hospital ser- 
vants ; and finally the infantry armed with Reming- 
tons and Mausers. Thus the force, counting the 
commissioned officers, two sergeants, and four cor- 
porals, mustered above seventy. Every man, what- 
ever he did not have, had a machete, and appeared 
tolerably able to use it. 

One morning at breakfast, a scout rode in and 
dismounted by headquarters. " Pues, sefiores," he 
said ; " soldados en Capitolio ! ( there are soldiers 



Savanas Nuevas 25 



in Capitolio)." Capitolio was a hill near by, where 
there was a fort; so it looked as if a reinforcement 
had come to move against Savanas Nuevas. Then 
I saw our force assemble and line up by the picket 
guard. 

Half of the enlisted men were negroes, and two 
were Chinamen (survivors of the Macao coolie 
traffic, that followed the suppression of the slave 
trade), shifty, sharp-eyed Mongols, with none of 
the placid laundry look about them. The firearms 
were in a bad condition, some sightless, some sawed 
off for convenience in handling. These men did not 
seem to know much about shooting, but were evi- 
dently accustomed to bang away, trusting in Provi- 
dence and the fear they inspired to efface the enemy. 
Being a stationary force, they had little chance to 
practise skirmishing, and were therefore somewhat 
below the standard of efficiency : this I found out 
from observation of other insurgent bands. 

Service at Savanas Nuevas was not severe. The 
mounted men spent their time in merely patrolling 
the trail, or scouting the valley below, where they 
cut telegraph wires and tore up bits of the railroad 
track. At night they rode by squads through the 
country in search of Plateados. 1 Whenever they 
caught one, he was brought in and hanged to a 
bough of the "Tree of Justice" on the outskirts 
of the camp. Thus life with its simplicity and 

1 The Plateados were robbers who infested the country early in the war 5 a terror 
to small planters and defenceless women. Mr. Silvester Scovel, correspondent of 
the A r <.Tt> York World, has told of a narrow escape he had when " held up" by a 
company of them. As the outrages perpetrated by Plateados were invariably attiibuted 
by the Spanish authorities to the organized insurgents, the latter have been especially 
active in exterminating all sorts of outlaws. Every Cuban on detached service carries 



26 



Marching with Gomez 



its exigencies resembled that of Marion's men in 
our own Revolution. 

So five days passed at Savanas Nuevas, with only 
an occasional break when a courier rode in with 

news from the outer 




world. Often these 
messengers brought 
copies of the Havana 
papers, which were 
read aloud by the 
camp-fire; sometimes 
American papers 
came to us and were 
turned over to me to 
translate. The insur- 
gents were eager to 
know what Mr. 
Cleveland was up to, 
and whether he would 
grant the recognition 






The ' ' Tree of Justice. ' ' 



voted by Congress. 
When I happened to 
read a passage dilat- 
ing on some horrible 
atrocity, one of the listeners was sure to wag his 
head and say, " Pooh ! I could have told him some- 
thing worse than that myself." 

I saw very little of Andarje while I stayed in his 

a cedula, or pass, signed by his commanding officer, giving the reasons for his travel- 
ling abroad. Suspicious persons who cannot account for themselves, or carry arms 
without the proper cedula, are tried as Plateados. So strictly has the insurgent police 
svstem been carried out that desperadoes of every class have long since ceased to exist. 
The "Tree of Justice," where they executed Plateados, was an institution of Savanas 
Nuevas. 



Savanas Nuevas 



27 




'Andarje gave me a horse." 



camp, except his bluff, wholesome face at dinner ; 
for he rode the country by night, and slept mostly 
by day. 

Meanwhile I suc- 
ceeded in raising 
a fair equipment. 
Andarje gave me a 
horse and saddle, 
and I was able to 
purchase a hammock 
and a light blanket, 
through pacificos, 
who had access to 
the town. I had 
fortunately been able to smuggle out a 44 cal. re- 
volver which the insurgents loved to examine. It 
was "Americano legitimo," so clean and new that it 
gladdened their eyes. It completed my outfit. 

By this time I had made up my mind to go in 
search of the commander-in-chief, and not to " wait 
until he came our way," as Herrera had suggested. 
I went carefully through my kit and gave away 
everything not absolutely necessary for field service ; 
then, borrowing an escort from Andarje, I rode to 
join Major Rojas, who commanded a good force of 
bushwhackers in the neighborhood of Cardenas, 
and whose assistance would be useful in forwarding 
me on my way to Gomez. 



Chapter III 

Singeing the King's Beard 1 




iOUR miles out of Cardenas, in 
the angle formed by the two 
railroads leading respectively to 
Cimmarones and Recreo, there is a swamp forest 
thickly grown with giant palms. In the rainy 
season it is flooded and uninhabitable ; but from 
October to July it is a splendid place for the 
Cuban game of hide and seek. It is an innocent 
looking grove, so near the city with its garrison of 
four thousand troops, and from it you can watch 
the train with its armored 2 cars full of soldiers at a 
distance of scarcely three hundred yards, feeling 

1 Sir Francis Drake, when he burned the ships in the harbor of Cadiz, in 1587, 
facetiously termed it "singeing the beard of the King of Spain." — See Barrows' 
" Life of Drake," p. 256. 

2 Freight or "box" cars, plated laterally with boiler iron, pierced with loop- 
holes for rifles. 

28 



Singeing the King's Beard 29 

its way toward Cimmarones in the morning, and 
moving slowly back in the afternoon. 

Major Rojas, who was a wealthy sugar planter 
when the revolution began, made this swamp forest 
his headquarters with a force of sixty men. Forty 
of them were armados, with the usual assortment of 
Winchesters, Remingtons, and Spanish Mausers, 
but very short of ammunition. About half of them 
were negroes who had cut cane before the war on 
Rojas' estates. 

The officers, non-commissioned officers, and high 
privates were young men of leading families in Car- 
denas, with a sprinkling of young peasants of the 
more intelligent class. One of the officers was an 
instructor in fencing ; all his pupils had taken to 
the field, so he had no alternative but to go too. 

Rojas' men, like Andarje's, had lived all their 
lives in the district and knew every inch of it. 
Consequently, they made excellent scouts and an 
effective guerilla ! in spite of their small number. 
By night Rojas camped near the railroad track on 
a grassy savanna dotted with palms, where his men 
slung their hammocks .or stretched their hules," 
while the horses grazed on lariats near by. 

A little before daybreak Rojas blew two shrill 
notes on a pewter whistle. Then the force rose, 
folded its hammocks and oules, saddled up, and 
filed, by the gray dawn, into the swamp, all but the 
camp servants, who rode off into the canefields to 
cut bundles of cogollo for the day's forage. 

The horses stood saddled all day, in case of a 

1 Guerilla : see note at end of chapter. 

2 Hula : bits of glazed oil, or rubber, cloth. 



Marching with Gomez 




sudden alarm, an invariable Mambi custom ; and 
the force loafed, slept a little more, cooked its beef 

and sweet-potatoes, 
or was told off into 
fo raging-parties, ac- 
^SS~ cording to circum- 
stances. 
i I At this time 
KM Weyler was at- 
tempting to enforce 

< Bundles of cogotto for ihe day's forage." his orders to g rind 

the sugar-cane, and 
the insurgents were actively forehanded in burning 
it up. It was my good luck to be a guest at one 
of Rojas' bonfires. 

In the clear evening starlight, Rojas, two officers, 
four armed men, and myself left camp by a narrow 
cowpath, took down the bars of the snake fences 
bordering the railroad, and crossed the track silently. 
Then we filed through a farmyard on to the high- 
road. It was a broad road, where wagons might 
have easily passed each other, and it wound between 
stone walls and fields of waving cane. Two of the 
enlisted men rode ahead with carbines unslung 
across the pommels of their saddles, and two 
dropped behind. 

After a mile, a turn of the road brought us out 
on a rising ground overlooking the bay and the city 
of Cardenas. -Lights shone in the town, marking 
the main avenue of the city and public squares dis- 
tinctly. It was strange to look down, an outlaw, 
on streets I had walked freely a week before, — yet 



Singeing the King's Beard 



3i 



I was conscious of a certain feeling of pride thereat. 
A solitary light gleamed below us, half a mile away 
to our left. " That is the ' Sugar House,' " said 
Rojas. 

We continued slowly along the high-road. Rojas 
blew a note on his whistle, then we halted and lis- 
tened for a few moments. 




' ' The wall of flame rolled swiftly right and left. 

We rode on, and he repeated the call, halting 
again. Presently, with a swishing of cane leaves, 
a mounted man trotted swiftly from the shadow 
of a guarda-raya to our right, and pulled up 
sharp, with his horse's head over the wall. " It 
is true, Seiior Comandante," he said, " they have 
arrived, — eighty of the infantry, — they have camped 
in the ingenio, and there will be grinding to-mor- 
row." 



32 Marching with Gomez 

"Go ahead with your c candela,'" * said Rojas ; 
and we rode back to the rising ground, where we 
halted under a guasima tree and waited, straining 
our eyes over the black sweep of country below. 

A soft breeze blew inland, passing through the 
vegetation with a rustle, as we sat there on our 
horses for nearly a quarter of an hour without a word. 

" Look ! " said Rojas, suddenly. 

A faint light flickered to the left, moving in a 
straight line midway between us and the ingenio. 
Then in its wake a triangular red flame shot up, 
doubling and tripling and tumbling over itself, 
sweeping a cloud of white smoke into the sky. It 
was the prairie fire picture of the old school geogra- 
phies, only in place of frightened, stampeded ani- 
mals, tall palms rose in sharp silhouette in the 
foreground. Behind us every tree, every stone 
and blade of grass that was not hidden by our 
shadows stood out in orange glare, and a sweet, 
burning smell, with a sound like the heavy fall of 
rain, came to us even against the breeze. 

As the wall of flame rolled swiftly right and left, 
the ear caught a sharp pah ! pah-pah ! pah-pah-pr-r-r I 
of Mauser rifles, like a popping of toy pistols. The 
soldiers had tumbled out of the ingenio and were 
shooting at random. 

" How beautiful ! " observed Rojas. 

For three nights these " candela parties " con- 
tinued ; and the roofs of Cardenas were illuminated 
with our efforts. Rojas' own plantation, then in 

1 Candela : an illumination, a bonfire, — applied distinctly to the blaze of burn- 
ing sugar-cane. 



Singeing the King's Beard 33 

care of an agent, and that of his brother, came 
under the torch ; for Weyler's proclamation de- 
creed that all must grind whether they would or 
not, and soldiers were sent to protect the planters, 
and, incidentally, to see that they were obedient. 

Note. — A guerilla is an irregular troop of cavalry, numbering from thirty to one 
hundred men. Such troops are organized by the Spanish authorities, in the larger 
towns and cities, from native Cubans of low caste, and Spaniards long resident in 
the Island. That both officers and men of these irregular forces are recruited from 
disorderly classes is notorious, and Mr. Stephen Bonsai, in describing their mutilations 
of a captive, states that the guerrilleros (members of the guerilla) of Matanzas 
city are "liberated convicts to a man." Although not distinguished for courage, the 
Spanish guerillas are formidable enough owing to their knowledge of the country and 
familiarity with Cuban methods. 

In garb the guerillas resemble the Cubans, a resemblance that they endeavor by 
every means to increase. Early in the war they adopted the Cuban signal of throwing 
back the hat, allowing it to dangle on the hat cord when challenging, and frequently 
gave the Cuban challenge " Alto ! quien va ? (Halt ! who goes ?) " instead of the 
regulation Spanish challenge "Alto ! quien vive ? (Halt ! who lives ?)." You may 
detect the stripe of an advancing cavalry force, however, with a field-glass, by noticing 
whether the hats and carbines are of uniform pattern. Uniformity, even in half a 
dozen gun-barrels, peeping from a thicket, is a suspicious circumstance. 

The guerillas are employed almost entirely as guides and advance guards to Span- 
ish infantry columns, and their attempts to pass for Cubans and get the first shot, 
have frequently led them to shoot into each other by accident. 

I have a pathetic story which was told me by Jose Ballete y Sierra, a recruit in 
Rojas' force, while waiting, as a desarmado, his turn to carry a rifle. 

Two weeks before I met him, Jose Ballete was owner of a little plantation near 
Recreo. His sixteen-year-old son was seen by the Spanish guerrilleros of Recreo 
exchanging words with a scouting party of insurgents. After the rebels had passed, 
the guerrilleros came from their hiding-place, arrested the lad, and took him before 
the Alcalde of Recreo as a suspect. The Alcalde seems to have been a decent sort 
of fellow, for he dismissed the case and ordered the guerrilleros to take the boy home. 
As soon as they were clear of the town, the guerrilleros cut the boy to pieces with 
their machetes, and left his mutilated body in a field, where it was found six days 
later by his parents. Then the father put a star and a blue ribbon on his hat, and 
joined the rebels in the woods. 

Although the word guerilla may apply to every mounted Cuban company, the 
Cuban prefers to speak of his troop as afuerza, or force. 



Chapter IV 
A Skirmish with the " Gringos " 1 

I JOINED Lacret on the afternoon of April 
4th, just in time to witness a skirmish, and to 
observe that method of fighting pursued with 
so much success by the rebels and so little by 
the Spaniards. Rojas had heard that Lacret was to 
camp that day with a large force at Pavo Real, an 
estate in the foothills, midway between Cardenas 
and Matanzas, and five miles from the shore. The 
Spanish Colonel Pavia, however, had heard so too, 
with the result that when we were still three miles 
from Pavo Real, we heard firing ahead. 

We met two peasants on the road, who told us 
that a big Spanish column had come by rail from 
Matanzas and had cut across country from Limonar, 
and were near, very near, — Dios only knew how 
near. As they spoke, there came a popping like 
the explosion of a string of fire-crackers, then five 
crashing volleys rolled through the hills, followed 
by the sharp rattle of Mausers fired " at will," and 
our pacifico friends sped on with scarcely an "adios." 
A puff of black smoke shot up a mile in front of 
us, — the black smoke of a peasant's cottage that 

1 Gringo is familiar to all who have lived in the Southwest as contemptuously 
applied by die Mexicans to Americans. It means something awkward and foreign. 
In Cuba I found it commonly applied to Spaniards. 

34 



A Skirmish with the " Gringos " 



35 



leaps into the sky with a shower of sparks and dies 
away quickly. As we looked, another black cloud 
arose, blowing over the trees this time far to our 
right. Then we knew that the Spaniards were 
marching toward the shore, and that Lacret was 
probably retreating before them. So we turned our 
horses toward the sea. 

It was a pleasant, hilly district, threaded by up 



f^^^-V' ; 




' 'Fleeing as from a plague. ' ' 

and down country lanes, and cut by yellow lime- 
stone walls into pastures, canefields, and clumps of 
scrub forest, — a country for ambuscades and sur- 
prises. 

Peasants hurried past us, fleeing as from a plague. 
Old men, women with babies in their arms, and 
little children tugging at their skirts, ran along, 
never looking up. Cottages were left vacant ; only 
dogs and hens remained. 



36 



Marching with Gomez 



At last the crest of a hill opened up a wide view 
of the ocean. Below us lay rich canefields sweep- 
ing to the coastline, with only a fringe of palms and 
undergrowth between them and the blue sea. 
Skirting the palms, a long white line of mounted 
figures moved slowly toward Cardenas ; it was 
Lacret's impedimenta, as the unarmed contingent of 
camp servants and officers' orderlies is called, and a 
fresh rattle of musketry told that the main force was 
covering its retreat. 

Following a boundary wall through the sloping 
canefield, we ran into Lacret's rear-guard. Lacret 

was there himself, sur- 
rounded by his staff, 
peering over the country 
through his field-glass. 
A long line of armed 
men chewing sugar-cane 
and lounging in their 
saddles were marching 
off leisurely by twos, 
after the impedimenta, which had already passed. 
A trooper, shouting " Clear the way," trotted 
through the group of officers, leading a horse on 
which were two men, — one holding the other, a 
negro, on the pommel of his saddle before him. 
The latter was wounded or dead ; for his head hung 
limp on his breast, and his ragged shirt, open on 
his black chest, was stained with blood. A dozen 
stragglers came galloping up, leaning on their horses' 
necks, and leaped or scrambled through gaps in the 
boundary wall. One of them, a lieutenant distin- 
guished only by a star on his crossbelt, rode up to 




"Hi's head hung limp on his breast." 



SlUfMllFKJ) 




to 

< 

uJ 
Q 

< 



g, 



en 
_5\ 



4 
t 

(J 


*- ~i 2 

■> _J to 


^> 

o 

X 
X 




i s 


X 



■fc. 



38 Marching with Gomez 

Lacret. " They kept coming, and we were out of 
ammunition," he said. 

Back in the olive angle, where the canes and 
palm shadows met, a gray speck appeared, enlarging 
swiftly and extending toward us. 

Lacret turned in his saddle ! " Captain Cama- 
guey," he said, " make another ambuscade with 
twenty men behind this wall." Then he rode on, 
followed by the staff. 

. As we tagged on after him, a young officer, Duque 
Estrada, told me the story of the fight. " At noon," 
he said, " we were camped on the hill called Pavo 
Real, when scouts galloped in with news that Pavia 
was near, marching from Limonar, with a full 
column of cavalry and infantry, — perhaps fifteen 
hundred men. It was almost a surprise ; for we 
did not expect troops from that direction. We had 
scarcely time to mount and form when they came 
in sight, deploying over the hillsides and fields to 
the west in an effort to surround us. The general 
sent out two parties, forty each, of armed men, 
who took strong positions behind walls and thickets, 
leaving between them a free road toward the coast, 
through which our unarmed men rode in safety. 
Lacret's escolta — or body-guard — held the hill, 
and as soon as the impedimenta were out of the way 
we followed them, dropping small bunches of men 
behind to ambuscade the enemy from every wooded 
hill or limestone wall that could furnish a cover. 
You can see by the smoke that they are burning 
all the peasants' houses we have passed, — beginning 
with the one at Pavo Real. They are brave to- 
day," — he said bravo, which means at once, angry, 



A Skirmish with the " Gringos " 



39 



persistent, valorous, aggressive — "and have kept 
after us, although we have left five ambuscades and 
they must have lost quite a few men already." 

Two scouts galloped suddenly from a guarda-raya 
of the canefield through which my little party had 
just passed. "The gringos!" they shouted; "the 
cavalry are coming. Many, 
many of them ! They are 
coming through the cane to 
head us off! " Over the crest 




■MKM 



^'W I till HI"' 

Starting' a candela. 

of the hill a dark moving something appeared, 
approaching diagonally. Pavia's mind had ex- 
panded with a stratagem, and things looked serious. 

Lacret turned back to where Camaguey was plac- 
ing his handful of men for the sixth ambuscade. 
" Give them a candela," he said. 

A negro, without dismounting, cut a bunch of 
palm leaves by the roadside, twisted them together 
into a torch, and lighted it, galloping along by the 
side of our retreating line of men. He leaned low 
from his saddle, switching the sputtering torch under 



4-0 Marching with Gomez 

the skirts of the cane shoots ; another negro dis- 
mounted, climbed over the wall with a bunch of 
matches, and fanning vigorously with his hat, kindled 
a fire on the other side. 

A strong breeze was blowing from the sea ; the 
canes Were ablaze with frightful heat in a moment, 
and the heavy smoke and flame were swept in the 
face of the Spanish cavalry. We had nothing more 
to fear from that quarter. 

A popping from Camaguey's men joined the 
crackling of burning cane. The gray line of 
Spaniards was now within easy range, and the sharp 
pah! pah! pah! of Mausers, with a psit! of an 
occasional bullet, lower aimed than the others, came 
in return. 

The Spaniards advanced a little and drew up to 
shoot again. 

Lacret, sitting on his horse by the wall, watched 
the flames spreading before the wind. He was 
very conspicuous, wearing a tall Mexican hat, and 
you could hear shouts of " Tira al sombrero alto 
(Shoot at the tall hat)." Then we left Camaguey 
and rode after the main force. That was the last 
ambuscade of the day. . 

It was now four o'clock in the afternoon. The 
Spaniards sent half a dozen volleys in our direction, 
and fell back toward Pavo Real. Our column took 
to the forest-clad hummocks at the base of the 
peninsula Hicacos, and as we looked back, the 
whole country seemed ablaze. Four miles of sugar- 
cane skirting the shore was afire, and back among 
the hills of Pavo Real rose the blacker smoke of 
burning cottages. 



A Skirmish with the "Gringos" 41 

This skirmish cost Lacret two out of two hun- 
dred armados, one of whom was buried, when the 
troops ceased to pursue, among the scrub trees of 
the peninsula. The other received a fatal wound 
from a stray shot at very long range, perhaps a 
mile, and after his troop was under cover. A 
nickel-covered Mauser bullet pierced the small of 
his back, passed through the thumb of his bridle 
hand, and buried itself in the pommel of his saddle. 

We camped that night in the overseer's cottage 
on a sugar estate, three miles out of Cardenas, and 
as I sat at supper with Lacret, scouts reported the 
enemy's position in the immediate neighborhood. 
Pavia had made camp in a sugar-house five miles 
away, near Pavo Real. Three miles to the south of 
us, camping on another large plantation, was a Spanish 
column of eight hundred men which had marched 
that afternoon from Cardenas. To the northeast, 
at scarcely a greater distance, lay Cardenas with its 
garrison of regulars and volunteers. It was fair to 
suppose that with reasonable activity, Spanish 
scouting parties might locate us during the night 
and have every lane and trail about us ambuscaded 
by morning. 

I asked Lacret if we were not in a bit of a hole, 
and mv question surprised him. 

" They will not know where we are," he said, 
" until they hear it from peasants to-morrow. 
They never dare to send out scouts : if they did, 
I should capture them at once. They only move 
about the country in heavy columns, and I can 
skirmish with them or evade them as I like. By 
to-morrow they will know that we have been here, 



4 2 



Marching with Gomez 



and they will march here on principle ; but by sun- 
rise I shall be gone, and they will not know where I 
am, excepting by accident, until twenty-four hours 
later." I found that Lacret was not guilty of ex- 
aggeration. 

Meanwhile the dying man was given a room 
to himself, and the surgeon tried to do some- 
thing for him. At sundown his wound began to 
pain him, and his groans, " Ay, Dios mio ! Ay, 
Dios mio ! " broke the stillness of the night until 
death came early the next morning. 



' J £$Mj 







Lacret takes an evening nap. 



Chapter V 
Pacified Matanzas" 






.<■ •. ?-? \ . 




BY two in the morning of April 5th, Lacret's 
column was on the road and daybreak found 
it winding from the valley of Guamacaro by 
a wide circuit into the hills, and back again 
toward Pavo Real. An advance guard of fifty ar- 
mados rode a quarter of. a mile ahead, then came 
Lacret with his towering hat, surrounded by his 
staff and followed by his escolta, some sixty big, 
black cane-cutters, naked as Andarje's infantry. 

After the escolta, an impedimenta of one hun- 
dred ragamuffins, white, black, and yellow, bob-tailed 
along with a tinkling of pots and pans ; it included 
the officers' orderlies and outlawed peasants, who 
had begged to follow the force for safety. 1 It was 

1 Peasants were flocking daily to be incorporated in the force ; but there were no 
rifles, and the impedimenta was already crowded. Those in immediate danger were 

43 



44 Marching with Gomez 

mounted on all sorts of beasts, small donkeys, even 
mares in foal, and with feeble-limbed little colts 
neighing and scampering after them. One negro 
wore an antique Spanish dragoon sabre attached to 
his waist by twine, and a single gilt spur tied over 
his bare instep, with which he constantly goaded his 
horse to greater exertions by an upward jerk of the 
knee. 

A rear-guard of fifty more armados ended the 
procession. The rest of the force explored the 
country for a league ahead as scouts, or rode 
the fields to right and left of the column as 
flankers, foraging in potato patches and leading off 
horses on lariats wherever they found them. The 
force, as usual, had marched on an empty stomach, 
but sugar-canes cut on the way made a frequent and 
refreshing " long breakfast." 

As we journeyed along, dead horses by the road- 
side, gaps torn in the yellow limestone walls, chips 
and scars on trunks of trees, marked scenes of long 
retreats and frequent skirmishes. Vultures floated 
lazily over the pastures or watched us from fence 
and gate post with sleek indifference. The frequent 
banquets of the war had dulled their appetite. 

One noticed that the houses of all who could 



allowed to march with us, until they could be left in some comparatively safe camp 
in the swamps of the south shore. Later, west of the Hanabana river, near Coco- 
drillos, I met a party of three hundred refugees, the overflow of Matanzas impedi- 
menta. They were marching on foot from the swamps, which a scarcity of wild pigs 
and the first floods of the rainy season had rendered uninhabitable for so great a num- 
ber together, toward the forest-clad highlands of the interior, where they hoped to 
survive the summer. Nearly all these men were negroes, naked, destitute, — not 
half a dozen revolvers or fifty good machetes among them. Even their officers, two 
mulatto lieutenants, looked discouraged. With proper arms, this mob might have 
become a formidable force. 



" Pacified Matanzas " 



45 




" Structures like bird cages. 



afford to live in the towns were deserted. Their 
owners had often stripped the red tiles from the 
roofs, so that insurgents might not camp in them 
and give the troops an excuse for using the torch. 
For the same reason, the thatch was removed from 
summer houses, leaving only framework struct- 
ures like huge bird cages. But the peasants who 
tilled the soil for a 
living had to stay at 
home or starve, and 
on them fell the fury 
of Spain. 

Their hearts were 
with the insurrec- 
tion ; they gave us 
what they had and 
told truthfully what- 
ever they knew of the soldiers' movements. An 
incident of the march proved the sympathy of the 
average farmer. 

The owner of a palm-thatched hut invited Lacret 
to stop for a cup of guarapo, or " Cuba Libre." 
As the general reined up,. the countryman held out 
to him a cartridge box with fifty rounds of ammuni- 
tion which he had found in a field, thrown away or 
lost by a Spanish soldier. Lacret gave the man a 
gold piece, yet the gold was scarcely adequate to the 
value of such a gift. 

As the morning wore on, the heat was intense, 
and eight horses under heavy-weight riders had 
dropped by noon. The men did not seem to 
realize that some day the supply of horseflesh in 
Matanzas might come to an end. They rode with 



46 Marching with Gomez 

loose girths, they lolled in their saddles, sometimes 
with the knee over the pommel, almost the worst 
crime of which a cavalryman can be guilty, and they 
never dismounted, going up or down a hill, however 
steep the grade. Whenever I dismounted, as I had 
been taught to do for the sake of my horse, when an 
enlisted man in the First United States Cavalry, I 
was asked if the ride tired me. 

By one o'clock we reached Pavo Real, and the 
motley force sought the shade of every hedge, wall, 
and clump of trees ; extending like gypsy groups 
over the country in every direction. Pots were 
unpacked from the saddles, parillas were built, and 
an ox that had trailed with the impedimenta all that 
morning was led up drooling and panting to be 
butchered by the machete. 

Under the porch of a house that, being roofless 
and deserted, had escaped burning, Lacret reclined 
in his hammock, giving out guard details for the 
afternoon. 

After dinner I went over the trail of the Spanish 
troops and saw the ruins they had left. I saw an 
old woman and her half-naked sons poking in the 
square bed of ashes, which was all that remained of 
their home, looking for the family kettle. The 
sons had fled to the woods when the soldiers came, 
but the mother remained. " The Mambis were 
here last night," said an officer, riding up. " Yes, 
but I can't help that any more than I can help your 
being here," returned the old woman. " Burn the 
house," commanded the officer. 

There were some houses that they did not attempt 



"Pacified Matanzas" 



47 



to burn, but went through them like locusts. The 
families had come back and were crouching about, 
helpless and dazed at the situation. One woman 
showed me where they had unscrewed the top of 
her sewing-machine and taken it away to sell in the 
town ; they took sheets and bedding, even baby 
clothes, and the pigs and poultry from the farmyard. 
Twining like the trail of a great serpent across 
the fields and through the soft grass of the roadside, 
a narrow path was worn and polished by a thousand 




' ' Looking for the family kettle. ' ' 

pairs of hempen sandals slipping along in Indian 
file. By it, at intervals, lay spoons, forks or gar- 
ments that the gringos had dropped when they 
were tired of carrying them. 

There had been a court-martial in Lacret's camp 
on the morning of the skirmish. A mulatto lieu- 
tenant named Sanchez — a brave man, too, they told 
me — had been found guilty of assault on a negro 
girl of the neighborhood, and condemned to death. 
He was hung under the porch of a deserted cottage, 



48 



Marching with Gomez 



with a placard on his breast giving his name, the 
offence, and the finding of the court. I saw the 
body, and the Spaniards saw it too. A week later, 
in a bundle of Havana newspapers that came to us, 
we read that the cabecilla (or chieftain) Sanchez had 
fallen in battle, and had been left dead on the field 
by Lacret's retreating bands. 

All that afternoon local forces kept arriving, until 
the entire command numbered a thousand or more. 
Thirty cabecillas, of northern 
Matanzas, — among them names 
that had become famous through- 
out the Island, — reported to 
Lacret, and the staff-headquar- 
ters was a busy scene of greet- 
ings and conferences. 

There was Major Miguelin, 
known as the "Indio Bravo," who 
slouched about, looking up ac- 
quaintances, joking with every 
one and repeating the story of 
how he had, a week before, dis- 
comfited an entire Spanish regi- 
ment. He was a bronzed, 
sharp-eyed little man, who boasted Indian blood, and 
had sworn never to cut his hair " till he should lead 
his forty negroes into Havana." His black locks 
already reached his shoulders. Miguelin was a 
seasoned veteran of the Ten Years' War, — a singular 
mixture of kindness and ferocity. He loved his 
men like sons, and would proudly pat them on the 
shoulder, calling attention to their great size and 




" El Indio Bravo. 



"Pacified Matanzas " 49 

vigorous health. "What could Spanish 'yearlings' 
do against such fellows ? " 

A smooth-faced boy of twenty or so, the centre of 
an attentive group of older men, was pointed out to 
me as a person of distinction. This was Clothilde 
Garcia, the son of a wealthy planter, known before the 
war only as a spoiled child and mischievous youth. 
But when the revolution broke out he surprised 
everybody by leading a force of his father's stout 
farm-hands into the field ; and though many Cuban 
gentlemen rose with small bands at the first call to 
arms, only to lose their followings through inex- 
perience and the doubt that then filled men's minds, 
Garcia was one of the very few chieftains to success- 
fully maintain an organized force until the liberat- 
ing army of Gomez and Maceo swept the western 
provinces, calling every warm-blooded native to its 
standard. 

"Inglesito" 1 (the little Englishman) was another 
thorn in Spain's Cuban crown. He was fair and 
distinctly of Anglo-Saxon type, the son of an Ameri- 
can named Gould, yet he spoke no English, for his 
tather died when he was a. child, leaving him to the 
care of his Cuban mother. He was called "Ingle- 
sito" because his father was an "Ingles," as every 
one is in Cuba who speaks English. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Rejino Alfonso was note- 
worthy as having been a brigand before the war. 
His personal history was interesting, as it threw 
some light on pre-revolutionary life in Cuba. As 

1 "Inglesito" (Alfredo Gould) has since died of a wound in Havana Province. 
Raoul Marti, a native of Guantanamo, of French origin, who understands English 
and has been in the United States, is now known as "Inglesito" and is said to be 
an able soldier. 



50 Marching with Gomez 

a youth, Alfonso quarrelled with a civil guard and 
killed him, which unfortunate accident left no career 
open to him but that of an outlaw among the hills. 
Before the revolution the Guardia Civil, a select and 
infallible corps of Spanish constabulary, had a sort 
of absolute power over the timid country people. 
Their acts were inscrutable. If a civil guard shot or 
stabbed a peasant in a tavern row, it was because the 
culprit was " dangerous and disorderly." When 
the civil guards arrested a man, the chances were 
that he would be shot on the road " while attempt- 
ing a violent escape." 

Civil guards were, therefore, feared and hated, 
and whenever anybody had the pluck and origi- 
nality to kill one of them in self-defence, it was 
considered a virtuous act. Consequently Alfonso 
became a popular hero, holding with " El Cid " a 
romantic place in the hearts of the peasants. Plant- 
ers delighted to lend him money in return for 
anecdotes of his escapes from "justice." He was 
never a " sequestador," — a brigand who seizes peo- 
ple and holds them for ransom ; nor did I hear of 
his ever being guilty of any outrage. 

When the war began, Alfonso called his law-break- 
ing friends together and asked them to abandon their 
disorderly life and organize a Cuban guerilla. They 
followed him, all but four or five, who became pla- 
teados and were finally executed by the Insurgents. 

It is told of Alfonso that in the insurgent ranks 
he found himself face to face with an ex-police agent 
who for years had been most active in attempting 
his arrest and conviction. Bystanders, remembering 
the ex-brigand's fiery reputation, expected a duel at 



"Pacified Matanzas " 51 

once ; but they were disappointed. Alfonso ad- 
vanced to meet his enemy with extended hand, 
saying that he was glad to count him a friend, now 
that they fought under the same colors. 

As I saw him, Alfonso possessed attractive man- 
ners, with a frank, manly face and an honest gray 
eye. He was, perhaps, thirty years old, a good 
soldier, with an unusual knowledge of the country, 
— the result of professional experience. 

Another popular hero, Rafael Cardenas, a major 
of General Aguierre's Havana division, who was 
soon to be appointed a brigadier-general, and who 
was fresh in the glory of an important exploit, — 
the capture of a trainload of arms and ammunition 
that Martinez Campos, some weeks before, had at- 
tempted to send from Havana to the garrison in 
Matanzas city. Cardenas' troop of Havana cavalry- 
was noticeably better mounted, better equipped, and 
better "set up" than any force Lacret had with 
him, and the men were nearly all white. Perhaps 
they appeared better because of longer service ; for 
this force was one of the first organized in Havana 
Province ; while the Matanzas division consisted 
almost entirely of recruits incorporated during the 
invasion. 

Cardenas was a young man of ancient lineage, 
descended from a certain de Cardenas who was 
secretary to Isabella the Catholic, and whose 
grandson was settled in Cuba before the May- 
flower landed her colony at Plymouth. 

Rafael's father, becoming blind when a young 
man, lived in seclusion, and wrote verses on liberty 
that made him famous throughout the Island, and 



52 Marching with Gomez 

gave inspiration to his son. Rafael was a barrister 
by profession ; a tall young fellow with a dark 
moustache. He wore a blue college-man's sweater, 
with high tan-colored leggings, and a tall palm-leaf 
hat of the fine grade called jipi-japa. He sat a 
horse well, with a rather mediaeval, knightly air. 
His lieutenants were George Aguierre, nephew 
of General Aguierre, and a young English-Cuban 
engineer named del Monte, of .blonde, Saxon type, 
who has since been reported killed, a cousin of 
Leonardo del Monte of New York. 

For a mile over the country extended the dif- 
ferent squadrons. Everywhere fires, scarcely larger 
than if they had been built by Indian scouts, blazed 
under parillas, cooking strips of meat ; but so tiny 
and scattered were they that no smoke was dis- 
cernible on the landscape. 

Half of the enlisted men as you saw them to- 
gether were negroes, 1 with here and there a China- 
man. Occasionally a man was pointed out as a 
Spanish deserter, and in every case he appeared 
on an equality with the others. 

The officers were of all classes, — planters or 
planters' sons, professional men and peasants of 
the more intelligent order, with a trifling percentage 
of negroes and mulattoes. The prevailing tone of 
these forces was distinctly aristocratic : in fact, they 

1 In 1887, of the entire population of Cuba (1,102,689 whites and 485,187 
blacks — total, 1,587,876) 30^% were negroes. Statistics show a steadily 
decreasing percentage of negroes since 1841, when it was 58.4 (418,291 whites 
to 589,333 negroes). The numerical decrease of the negroes seems due to the 
condition under which they lived in slavery, which was continued as late as 1886. 
[See Mr. Maturin Ballou in "Due South," p. 279.] 



"Pacified Matanzas " 53 

were just such troops as Georgia and the Carolinas 
would have sent to the field early in this century. 
The discipline was good, and the men, though one 
missed many of the formalities that distinguish regu- 
lar soldiers, were conspicuously willing and obedient. 
I was surprised to find that by a recognized but un- 
written law, a professional man in good standing, or 
one holding the degree of bachelor of arts, was en- 
titled to a lieutenant's commission and a servant. 
Occasionally officers so appointed failed to develop 
the slightest military capacity ; some even suffered 
from the hardships of camp life, yet I never knew 
an instance of dissatisfaction at the system by the 
humbler rank-and-file. All of these men, officers 
and " buck-soldiers " alike, served absolutely with- 
out pay and on pain of a death, if captured, such as 
our frontier soldiers were accustomed to meet when 
taken prisoner by the Apache Indians. 

So much for Pavo Real. On the morning of the 
6th the local forces separated, returning to their own 
districts, and Lacret resumed his series of extraordi- 
nary, zigzag marches across the Island, that made 
him, to the Spaniards, a man of mystery. 



Chapter VI 
With Lacret and his Staff 

LACRET was a picturesque, gray-headed gen- 
tleman, with a very brown sunburned face, 
F and neatly curled white moustachios. He 
had a hawk nose and high cheek-bones like 
an old French general of the second Empire. His 
manners were refined and courteous. He spoke 
French as a second language ; but barely understood 
English. He was of Haytian French descent. 

Lacret was a wealthy man, and whenever he suc- 
ceeded in burning up a big sugar-mill, the Havana 
papers consoled themselves by publishing items of 
how different bits of property or invested interests 
of his had been seized by the Spanish Government. 
These accounts were always read with delight by 
Insurgents and Spaniard's alike, for the Cubans 
loved to think what a Mogul their commander had 
been, and it pleased the Spaniards to feel that thev 
were getting even with an enemy. 

Lacret was exceedingly neat in his costume, his 
belt and leggings were always well blacked, he car- 
ried a change of linen uniform in his saddle-bags, 
and he was very particular about being neatlv 
shaved. The most extraordinary article of his 
dress was the tall Mexican hat that had attracted 

55 



$6 Marching with Gomez 

the attention of the Spaniards at Pavo Real. It 
had a silver star within a triangular crimson cock- 
ade on one side, and from it a long red cord hung 
about his neck and down his back like an artillery- 
man's aigulette. That hat was known throughout 
Matanzas Province. There was not another like it 
in all Cuba. 

Lacret's valet and barber was a black man 
named Campoverde, a pretentious, undershot darky 
whom he used to discharge from his personal 
service perhaps twice a week. Lacret was fond of 
Campoverde, Calle-verde, or Casa-verde (Green- 
field, Green-street, Green-house) as the staff vari- 
ously and facetiously called him, and often sent him 
to cottages by the roadside with his long pipe to 
light it. The valet would trot back puffing furi- 
ously at the general's pipe, for tobacco was a luxury 
even for an officer, and always taking the longest 
way to make the most of his smoke. 

Lacret had two bullets, souvenirs of the last war, 
both lodged in his right ankle. Often on long 
marches they would pain him terribly, and then it 
was that Campoverde might look out for squalls. 

Lacret would remove one boot and ride along 
under the blazing sun, writhing in pain, with the 
bare, scarred foot thrust far away from the stirrup. 

No one liked to talk to the general at those 
times, and the staff would whisper, "The old man 
is bad to-day ; it is lucky there are no shots (tiros), 
for he is scarcely able to command." And Campo- 
verde, who was at Lacret's left hand to carry his 
discarded boot, had to keep both eves open. He 
knew that it was no day for trifling. 









A 






•'• r- ?•"*■- 






1 






vk*> 


i 




fa 







•\ 



J 



! r 



I 



Berfrand, as sketched by Janiz. — Page 56. 



With Lacret and his Staff 



57 



Lacret and his staff made a picturesque and 
entertaining company. Honest old Pio Domin- 
guez, lieutenant-colonel, and tried veteran of the 
last war, was senior officer. Then there was Louis 
Borde, of Jamaica, a relative of the general, who 
was second on the list, ranking as major, a refined, 
pleasant-spoken gentleman, an eloquent authoritv 
on the habits and diseases of canary birds ; for the 
breeding of them in large aviaries had been his 
innocent pastime before the war. Physically he 
was the largest, perhaps the strongest, of Lacret's 
aides. 

Two of the staff, Bertrand and Pujol, proved 
the Spanish saying " from Cuban mothers Cuban 
offspring." They were sons of Spanish officers 
of rank. Bertrand was a handsome young man, 
recently promoted from the ranks for gallantry. 
His father, a colonel and nobleman, a marquis I 
believe, had resigned his commission when his son 
ran off to the Manigua. Pujol, a lanky, hard-faced 
youth, was son of a Spanish major. Months after- 
wards he was bayoneted while lying wounded in 
a Cuban field-hospital. 

There was Piedra, Lacret's secretary, whose 
handwriting was beautiful and rapid, Captain Elias 
of Tampa, a Cuban-born American, and a little 
Havana lawyer, something of a fire-eater and duel- 
list, who bore scars of encounters with rapiers, — 
his name has escaped me. 

Finally, there was Manoel Camaguey, captain 
of the escolta, a boastful but fearless little man 
who kept a careful diary of all the engagements he 
had ever been in, together with a list of his wounds, 



58 



Marching with Gomez 



which he would read for hours at a time to any one 
who would listen. I was with him one evening 
when he read his journal to a peasant family until 
they interrupted his recital with food brought from 
a secret cupboard, and Camaguey won an extra 
supper. 

Camaguey was always in a skirmish if there was 
one; for it was Lacret's policy, when a column 

pressed him, to send off the 
impedimenta with a guide, 
and gallop with the escolta to 
check the Spaniards and cover 
the impedimenta's retreat. I 
rarely saw him use other forces 
he had with him in a skirmish, 
if he could avoid it : perhaps 
because he had more confi- 
dence in his own body-guard. 
At this time Collazo, who 
had just landed his expedi- 
tion at Baradero, near Car- 
denas, was with us, waiting to 
join Gomez. Collazo was to 
become a general, on confirma- 
tion of the commander-in-chief, and he had selected 
as the nucleus of his staff, Hernandez and Duque 
Estrada, two young officers who had been educated, 
and very well educated, in the United States. 
Charlie Hernandez was conspicuous for a fine pair 
of boots which he never took off. They were 
sportsman's boots, came to the knee and were laced 
up in front. 

Somehow, whenever you saw Hernandez, you 




General Collazo. 



With Lacret and his Staff 



59 



saw his boots first and always considered the 
chances of war, and wondered who would get those 
boots in case an accident were to happen to their 
occupant. Although Hernandez shared the com- 
mon danger of dying with his boots 
on, there was no possibility of his 
being buried with them on. 

I had almost forgotten a little doc- 
tor named Janiz. I think he was 
appointed largely on account of his 
pleasing social qualities, for he never 
seemed to know what to do when 
a man was wounded. He would al- 
ways open his little medical case and 
spread it out all over the table and 
study the instruments and then roll 
them up, put them back again, and 
turn with a sigh of relief to the good 
old rag and diluted carbolic acid 
treatment. 

Janiz was a bit of an artist, and 
made portraits that were in great 
demand. One I reproduce ; it was 
of Bertrand and did not flatter him 
in the least. Janiz had a knack at 
caricature, and a sense of humor 
that made him sketch men who went to sleep 
in chairs, or corners, in awkward poses or with 
their mouths open, and then tickle them with 
straws until they awoke. Janiz would himself 
remain awake, even when fatigued, for fun of this 
kind. Janiz and the little barrister, the alleged fire- 
eater, had a joke that they passed between them. 




Hernandez' beauti- 
ful boots. 



60 Marching with Gomez 

One would catch the other's eye and remark "Jigi- 
li-ji," chuckling ; the other would reply quick as a 
shot, " Jigili-ji," and both would squirm in spasms 
of mutual merriment. 1 never was able to learn 
what the joke was. 

As a disciplinarian, Lacret was a failure. He 
yielded to humane emotions, and was altogether 
too easy with his men. I remember at Pavo Real, 
Miguelin's scouts brought in an evil-eyed peasant, 
accused, on fair circumstantial evidence, of having 
guided the Spaniards to the attack of the day before, 
and who even had a Spanish pass about him ; yet 
Lacret let him go on the ground that the evidence 
was not conclusive. Near Bolondron, Lacret 
spared two guerrilleros who had been captured by 
his scouts. Regular Spanish soldiers are invariably 
released as a matter of policy ; but guerrilleros are 
usually regarded as traitors, and fair game for the 
machete. 

The consequence of Lacret's kindness was to 
encourage stealing among the negroes, and when- 
ever local forces camped with us, you had to be up 
very early, the moment the whistle was blown, to 
see that no one rode away with your horse. I found 
a contrast later, in Gomez' camp, where you could 
leave anything, even a purse or a pistol, lying about, 
and nobody would take it : for it was very well 
known that Gomez would shoot any man found 
stealing the smallest thing as quick as he could make 
a court-martial convict him. 

With the peasants Lacret was genial and patron- 
izing, and a welcome guest in their cottages. He 
played grandfather to the men, and flattered the 



With Lacret and his Staff" 



61 



women with an old soldier's insinuating gallantry. 
Where there were attractive girls of marriageable 
age, Lacret would join them, bringing gifts of ciga- 
rettes, or long black cigars, if he had them ; for 
the Cubanitas love tobacco, and they would all puff 
and joke together very happily. 

To myself, as a correspondent, Lacret was espe- 
cially courteous. He detailed 
two negroes from his impedi- 
menta, Alfredo and Eusebio, 
to be my asistentes, one of 
whom followed me till the 
day of an unfortunate skir- 
mish; the other until I set 
sail from Cuba. 

Noticing that Pujol was 
far better mounted than I, — 
for he rode a fiery little stall- 
ion that some scouts had 
found concealed among the 
canes on a sugar estate, while 
I still rode the old flea-bitten 
gray mare Andarje had given 
me, — Lacret bade us change 
steeds. This with a charac- 
teristic little speech, telling how foreigners should be 
cherished and given of the best. Pujol and I 
shifted saddles, though Pujol, as a friend, advised me 
that his was a high-spirited animal, that he, skilled 
equestrian as he was, could scarcely control ; per- 
haps for an American it might be dangerous. I 
was mortified to deprive a companion of a good 
horse ; but the general so commanded ; and as 




1 The Cubanitas love tobacco. ' 



62 



Marching with Gomez 



for Pujol, I was able to soothe his feelings with a 
small loan some days later. 

Lacret's courtesy was of the old 
baronial type, and before I left him 
he made Piedra draw up for me acom- 
mission (which I reproduce on page 
66) as honorary major of his staff, 
" to take active effect," he said, " as 
soon as I chose to become a Cuban 
citizen." This commission was later 
of great assistance to me in securing 
guides and small escorts as I trav- 

Eusebio and Alfredo, elled in search of Gomez. 




Lacret made two circuits in ten days of " pacified 
Matanzas," always marching long before daybreak, 
passing within gun 



shot of encamped 
Spanish columns, 
tearing up railroad 
tracks and cutting 
telegraph wires. It 
was the level " red- 
earth " (tierra Colo- 
rada) country, where 
rich ferruginous 
mould tints the soil, 
enriching it for the 
production of sugar- 
cane and coffee. 
Everywhere the 
cane was afire, and a 







O^ukne o]T'e6sune 



Map showing Lacret's two circuits of Pacified 
Matanzas, in ten days, and the railroads 
we crossed. 



haze of fragrant smoke hung in the air. Sometimes 



64 Marching with Gomez 

we crossed the bare hills that extend like a great back- 
bone through the centre of the province, and moved 
into some new district where our presence was un- 
looked for. Sometimes we circled about white vil- 
lages, with dots of forts and tall cathedral towers ; 
sometimes, when halting for dinner, we would be 
nearly surprised, and shots from the main guard 
would be followed by a tumbling of pots and pans 
into panniers on the backs of horses and mules, and 
a swearing, clattering exit of the impedimenta on the 
trot or gallop after the practico (guide). 

After one of these surprises, near Bolondron, on 
the 1 8th of May, a man called " El Japones " (the 
Japanese), a big, stupid fellow who had come with 
Collazo's expedition, was captured. 

He was one of a handful of men, commanded by 
Elias, who " stood off" the pursuing Spaniards from 
behind stone-walls, and his horse was shot under 
him. Contrary to general orders, he separated him- 
self from his troop and went to a farmhouse in search 
of a fresh mount. The Spanish advance was un- 
expectedly swift and " El Japones " was caught in 
the yard in front of the cottage. The peasants who 
buried him said that before he died they gouged out 
his eyes and smashed in his teeth with the butts of 
their muskets. At any rate he gave them some in- 
formation, including the fact that there was an Ameri- 
can correspondent with Lacret. When this news 
was reported at the officers' mess, — so I was told 
by Mr. Dawley, the Harper s Weekly correspondent 
who was with the Spanish regiment at the time, — a 
diminutive lieutenant tapped his machete, saying, 
" Oh ! wouldn't I like to get at that Yankee ; that 



With Lacret and his Staff 65 

Uncle Sam pig, — I'd teach him to go with the 
Mambis." 

One afternoon, within sight and gunshot of a fort, 
we captured a courier on a fine coffee-colored mule, 
with mail for the colonel of that same Spanish 
column. Lacret seized the official correspondence 
and the mule, and let the courier go his way on foot 
with the private letters. Duque Estrada rode the 
mule for some time afterwards. 

On the 14th, early in the morning, we rode 
through a great sugar estate, called, I believe, Con- 
chita, one of the largest in all Matanzas, about an 
hour before daybreak. Inglesito had burned it a day 
or two before under Lacret's orders. It was a little 
town by itself, built over the top of a broad hill. 
There were long buildings of stone for the employees, 
and storehouses for the syrup and sugar. In the cen- 
tre were the mills — all modern machinery. Every- 
thing was destroyed — only blackened walls remained, 
in which rafters and fragments of fallen roofing still 
smouldered or blazed in tiny flames. The guard of 
Spanish soldiers had departed — and it was dismal, 
and silent, except for the howling of half a dozen 
dogs. Certainly half a million of invested capital 
and standing cane went up on that estate alone. 

Everywhere splendid sugar-mills of obstinate 
planters, burned by the rebels, and peasants' huts 
and country houses of the rich burned by the troops, 
lay in ashes. Flames, and the unburied bodies of 
slaughtered pacificos of all ages, marked the course 
of Spanish columns. 

The Spaniards, following our trail, usually arrived 
at an estate, or cottage, a few hours after we had 



//^22a^2^aj 











^Cety^t*<t 



^-c-c-rry^K-c/i^- &m*4/Ce^r 




{One-half the actual si'z 



Division Matanzas. General Lacret Morlot (No. 2,65). In pursuance of the 
authority vested in me by Article 1 3 of the Law of Military Organization, and con- 
sidering the services lent, in the war of Cuban Independence, by the citizen Grover 
Flint, this Headquarters confers upon him the military rank of Honorary Major in 
the Liberating Army of Cuba. Savana Grande, April 20, 1896. 

F. & L. (Fatherland and Liberty) 
(Signed) Jose Lacret Morlot, 

General of Division. 



With Lacret and his Staff 



6? 



left it, and burned everything. The destruction of 
property was appalling. 

There was the Socorro de Armas place, — a com- 
fortable shooting-box, near Navajas, where we once 
rested for a day and a night. 

De Armas was no longer living ; but a steward 
represented the heirs and kept the house with its 
gardens and fruit trees, in good order. 

Some of us enjoyed siestas in de Armas' salon, 
where we sprawled over the dignified old furniture, — 
sofas and tables and armchairs ; some of us bathed 
in Seiior de Armas' little tin bathtubs; some of us 
found old friends in his library, — works of the 
Badminton series, books of travel and adventure, 
English novels that are held classic, and Monte 
Cristos, and Les Miserables, and Wandering Jews, 
and detective stories of Gaboriau ; and there was an 
album of popular photographs of twenty years ago, — 
Clara Morris, Madame Ristori, Adelaide Neilson as 
Rosalind, Kate Clax- 
ton in a snow scene 
from the "Two Or- 
phans," Lotta in 
"Zip," Charles 
Fechter in a cordu- 
roy suit, and the 
elder Sothern as 
Lord Dundreary. 
We ate from the de 
Armas porcelain — it was handsome porcelain — and 
as a change from mv hammock, I slept on the long, 
low, cushioned seat of the old family volante, which the 
careful steward had trundled up on the front porch. 




The old family volante.' 



68 Marching with Gomez 

It was a clean bunk, with that fragrance of cloth and 
leather that you find only in private carriages, and 
before we left, Duque Estrada, who had no waterproof, 
cut a great square of leather from the volante's hood 
that kept him dry on many a rainy march afterwards. 

An hour after we left the de Armas place, a black 
cloud arose behind us against the clear morning sky, 
and we knew that the Bungalow and the furniture 
and the old volante were going up in smoke. 

Once in a while there was time to get our clothes 
washed ; but like eating and sleeping, cleanliness 
was a matter of luck. In this connection, Lacret 
once remarked, " I shall bathe myself when the 
floods of the rainy season {las lluvias) begin. We 
all managed to shave occasionally, Campoverde act- 
ing as barber in off moments for those who had no 
razors. Campoverde was also staff hair-cutter by 
appointment. Otherwise, Lacret' s camp offered no 
luxuries excepting now and then a chance package 
of tobacco, or a thimbleful of coffee — sometimes it 
was honest, black Cuban coffee, sometimes a liquid 
brewed from scorched kernels of Indian corn. It was 
a struggle to write, because at night tapers were hard 
to get, and by day, when Lacret made a house his 
headquarters, the staff slept all over the tables and 
chairs until Campoverde tipped them off and served 
dinner. Even Piedra, the secretary, achieved official 
correspondence with difficulty. 

Efforts were made by those of the staff who could 
borrow money from the general, or had any of their 
own, to get clothing, tobacco ; rum, anything, out 
from the towns. Some daring pacifico would volun- 
teer to smuggle these supplies " for his personal 



With Lacret and his Staff 69 

use " ; but meanwhile, a sudden movement of the 
troops would send Lacret scurrying off to another 
district, and that was generally the last of the pacifico 
and the red gold piece. 

On one occasion, Charlie Hernandez and Duque 
Estrada sent a pacifico to Bolondron to buy them 
jipi-japa hats and two packages of cigars. The regu- 
lar price of the hats was four dollars each, but the 
pacifico arranged with a Spanish sergeant to buy 
them in Bolondron and deliver them to him at eight 
dollars apiece, with a corresponding advance for the 
cigars. The sly sergeant, to save appearances (he 
knew the supplies were for insurgents), smuggled 
them out through the lines in the coffin of a dead 
man who was to be buried in a cemetery on the out- 
skirts of the town. 

By the 20th of April the entire force was begin- 
ning to show signs of wear. The horses were all 
in bad condition from constant marching, so Lacret 
moved to the southward of Bolondron. 

There at Savana Grande, in the pasture country, 
where the tall palm forests and swamps of the south 
shore begin, Lacret held another mobilization of 
local forces. It was a sparsely settled district, with 
little danger of surprise from troops. 

The headquarters had been a pot-house, and a 
number of alcoholic luxuries still remained, for the 
Spaniards had not yet been there. The proprietor 
was crafty; every flask of brandy or liqueur you bar- 
gained for was the last, and the price advanced as 
swiftly as that of the Sibylline books. (Transactions 
of course were in confidence "between gentlemen.") 







The vicissitudes of del Monte. 



With Lacret and his Staff 71 

It was at Savana Grande that I met an old ac- 
quaintance. Years ago, when I was a small boy in 
New York and used to attend dancing classes, I 
knew a very swell youth named Leonardo del 
Monte. His family had a large estate in Cuba 
where they did a great deal of entertaining. Every 
afternoon del Monte promenaded Fifth Avenue in a 
silk hat and a long frock coat, with the gait that 
they call in England, the " cavalry stoop." He 
was several years older than I, but I often thought 
of him and wished I might grow up to look as dis- 
tinguished as del Monte. 

I was sitting on my host's porch, when a young 
man, a very seedy object, came limping up. His 
left shoe was tied on with a string, because the 
upper part had given way, and his right foot was 
bandaged in a sort of splint cunningly contrived 
from bits of cedar cigar boxes, and he wore a strag- 
gly beard. He asked me in English if I thought 
there was any possibility of getting a drink round 
there. I talked with him and found it was Leo- 
nardo. 

Some months before del Monte had received a 
Remington bullet in his foot that smashed the bones 
and gave him no end of trouble. He had been in 
a swamp hospital for two months, but getting sick 
of its flies and stench, he left as soon as his foot 
was a little better. 

Del Monte was a civil engineer, a graduate of 
Stevens Institute. He was then on his way to prac- 
tise his academic knowledge of high explosives in 
dynamiting a railroad bridge near Caiias. Whether 
he succeeded or not I never learned. 



Chapter VII 
The Prefectura Pedrosa 









THE Prefectura Pedrosa is in the district of 
Pedrosa, where canefields and pastures 
end, and the everglades and palm forests 
of the south shore begin. It is a short 
day's march from Navajas, a large garrison, town, 
and consequently not an entirely safe neighborhood. 
To reach it you must follow winding paths, through 
stretches of porous gray limestone, every crevice 
of which is so luxuriantly grown with pineapple, 
bananas, and malanga vines, that it is a splendid 
place for ambuscades. The paths are of brick-red 
dust that penetrates like the alkaline dust of our 
western plains : it rises in the air from under your 
horse's hoofs and works into your clothing, and is 
hard to wash out. 

The prefect lived with his family in one of three 

72 



The Prefectura Pedrosa 73 

comfortable palm-thatched cottages, on the edge of 
a forest. This first representative of the Civil 
Government I had seen, was an intelligent peasant, 
who carried a rifle and dressed neatly, like an officer 
of a local force, with the usual tricolored cockade 
on his hat. He exercised his duties as magistrate 
and only authorized killer of cattle and dispenser 
of beef to the country people of Pedrosa. His 
prefectura was one of the post stations within a 
day's march of each other that extend along the 
south shore from Cienfuegos, in Santa Clara, to 
the big trocha in Pinar del Rio. 

Here for the first time in the Manigua, I could 
write under a roof and on a table, with plenty of 
light, and without expectation of sudden alarm. 
I could also arrange to forward correspondence 
through the lines to my agent in Cardenas. 

Did the reader ever guess at the history of the 
tardy correspondence from the insurgent field he 
occasionally found in his morning newspaper dur- 
ing that period of the war ? Of the many letters 
I wrote from the Manigua, some of which I 
reproduce from memory in these chapters, the 
greater part were lost, or destroyed by the couriers 
to whom they were entrusted. Many a letter 
that reached its destination had to be smuggled 
past the guards of a town, perhaps in a basket 
of fruit, a cheese, or a cocoanut shell by some 
pacifico, who delivered it to my agent at the risk 
of his life and passed that risk along with it. 

I had arranged lines of communication through 
Cardenas and Matanzas ; but in both cities my 
agents were arrested, though it was long before I 



74 Marching with Gomez 

learned of the fact. The time was already past 
when a letter dropped in the postoffice of any 
town would be sent on its way with an unbroken 
seal. 

And these letters were queer-looking documents. 
They were written on almost anything ; sometimes 
on the blue or orange wrappers of a cake of choco- 
late, sometimes on the fly-leaves of old books from 
deserted houses. 

Early in the campaign I had lost my saddle-bags, 
with ink, pens, paper, and other supplies of the 
kind, and so I bought or borrowed pencils from peas- 
ants as I travelled along. One letter to the Journal 
arrived in New York with every other leaf missing. 
The agent, in the uncertainty of smuggling it out, 
evidently did not believe in trusting all his eggs to 
one basket. 

All was quiet at Pedrosa that morning. Nothing 
moved over the country but the shadows, until that 
afternoon a courier, who knew Matanzas Province 
as a New York policeman knows Broadway, rode 
off to the northward, with a bulky letter addressed 
to an imaginary person in Cardenas. 

There was a hospital in the forest at Pedrosa, just 
such a swamp hospital as Leo del Monte had com- 
plained of. It was there I met Madame Hernandez, 
the pretty young wife of Dr. Francisco Hernandez, 
formerly Maceo's staff surgeon and a graduate of 
the University of Madrid. She was assisting her 
husband as a trained nurse, and when the prefect 
presented me to her, she was under a rancho of 



The Prefectura Pedrosa 75 

palm leaves, fighting mosquitoes and tearing lint for 
the wounded. 

Madame Hernandez had sacrificed every comfort 
in life, except that of being with her husband, for the 
Cuban cause. She had just returned from the field, 
where for three months she had accompanied her 
husband, riding on a side-saddle, with Maceo's staff, 
in some of the hardest battles the fighting Cuban 
general ever had. 

In action, they told me Madame Hernandez 
always sat calmly on her horse in the hottest fire, 
ready to gallop to the side of a wounded officer or 
enlisted man. On one occasion, Maceo, seeing her 
tending a wounded negro soldier within range of the 
Spanish guns, rose in his stirrups, waved his hat 
and shouted "Viva la Reina de Cuba! (Long live 
the Queen of Cuba !) " 

Madame Hernandez was diffident, and little in- 
clined to talk about herself. 

" Do you ever feel nervous under fire ? " I 
asked. 

" Ah, no, Senor," she replied ; " I feel no fear, 
because I know one only falls when the time comes 
— so, you see, I couldn't feel frightened, and it 
does not matter whether the firing is near or far 
away. Then I have my duties to attend to, which 
makes a difference. The first time I was under fire 
I did feel a strange fascination and interest, and then 
somebody was wounded near me, and I went to 
attend him." 

" Have you personally witnessed any of the atroci- 
ties that the troops inflict on the country people ? " 

" Not exactly ! You see we were always on the 



76 Marching with Gomez 

march, but the troops followed us, killing many 
poor people and burning houses. I knew of one 
very sad case, however. 

" General Maceo and our staff camped with a 
very good and kind family at Lomo del Gato. 
There was an old man and his young married 
daughter, who had lately become a mother. She 
was a very sweet woman, and her husband, I think, 
was with the insurgents. After we left, the Span- 
iards came and our scouts brought in stories from 
the country people of what they did there. 

" They entered the house of our kind friends, 
sacked it, and cut the old man down with machetes. 
They killed an old negro servant and two mulatto 
farm-hands, and left their bodies by the road un- 
buried. The daughter was in the room when they 
killed her father, and she tried to rush between them 
and the old man. They cut her about the right 
arm, which she raised before her face, and wounded 
her with thrusts of bayonets. The wet nurse ran 
to the door and held up the little baby before her, 
begging for mercy. A soldier, standing outside, 
put his rifle to the infant's head and shot the poor 
little thing dead. The daughter refused to be cared 
for by a Spanish surgeon, but they put her in a shed 
near by, for they had fired the house, and the regi- 
mental surgeon ordered quicklime put on her 
wounds. She died from shock and pain. 

" This is the story the peasants tell in Lomo del 
Gato. You hear such stories all over the Island — 
I believe they are all true — though it seems in- 
credible that people could act so nowadays." 

I asked Madame Hernandez if there was no 



The Prefectura Pedrosa 



77 



less exposed place for her than at Maceo's side 
in action. 

" There was no other place, even if I wished, — 
and after all one is as safe at a general's side as any- 
where," she answered. " Our headquarters was the 
saddle, and at night we stopped wherever we hap- 
pened to be. Then, you know, I am not here for 
my own comfort." 

At night, on that campaign, Madame Hernandez 
slept, as I learned from Lacret, like any Cuban sol- 
dier, in a hammock between two palm trees, or under 
the porch of some cottage. She never felt fatigue, 
she said, because she had too much to do. 

She was in Maceo's hardest battles. She was at 
Pavo Real, where the Spanish General Luque was 
wounded and his column driven back before a 
charge of Maceo's cavalry. At Rio Hondo she 
was with the first line of skirmishers, who accounted 
for fifty-four Spaniards in three hours and laid their 
bodies side by side on the high-road. At Moralitos 
and Jesus Nazareno she rode tirelessly in an all-day 
skirmish, when the insurgent army engaged three 
Spanish columns. She was at Jaruco when the 
town was taken and sacked. It was there that the 
Spanish troops entered after the insurgent forces 
had retired, shot down seventeen non-combatants, 
whom they dragged from their houses, and sent 
thirteen more to the dungeons of Morro. 

Note. — I remember Dr. Hernandez as a tall, gaunt man, extremely pallid and 
emaciated. I clip the following from the Boston Globe of August 3, 1897, with- 
out comment. 

"Havana. Aug. 2. — A correspondent who has returned from the Isla de 
Pinos secured an interview with Mrs. Hernandez, widow of Dr. Hernandez, who 
was Maceo's physician. 



V 



Marching with Gomez 



" Mrs. Hernandez was captured by Spaniards after her husband was killed near 
Sancti Spiritus, and deported to the penal settlement of the Isla de Pinos. Mrs. 
Hernandez says that her husband, who was in the last stages of consumption, was 
hidden in Managua hospital, accompanied by herself and two faithful negro attend- 
ants, all unarmed. 

" Her husband was at the point of death and too weak to move when the Span- 
ish forces, under Col. Orozzo, approached. . . . She hoisted a white flag with a 
red cross, but the troops fired upon the house, killing one attendant and wounding 
the other. She advanced to meet the Spaniards, beseeching the commandant to 
cease firing, and announced her husband's name and rank. . . . The soldiers 
surrounded the house. . . . Col. Orozzo dismounted and entered the building, 
and Dr. Hernandez made an effort to rise and greet him, when Orozzo deliberately 
drew his revolver and sent a bullet through the sick man's brain. The soldiers tore 
Mrs. Hernandez from her husband's body, hacked the corpse with machetes and 
set fire to the building. . . . They forced her to march before them with arms 
shackled all of that day. . . . Arriving at Sancti Spiritus, after further ill treat- 
ment, she was thrown into a common prison with male criminals. Weyler con- 
demned her to indefinite confinement in a penal settlement." 




A cup of guarapo by the roadside. 



Chapter VIII 
Marto's Men 




F 



iROM Pedrosa eastward 
to the Hanabana river are 
rolling pastures lighted at 
night by reflections of dis- 
tant candelas and the gleam of 
the great fire beetles, called co- 
cuyos, 1 — insects as big as June 
bugs, with a spark brilliant 
enough to read by if you catch 
one in a handkerchief. In times 
of peace, young men catch cocu- 
yos and present them to their 
sweethearts, who tangle them in 
their mantillas, or pin them on 
their bosoms confined in little bits of lace. In war 
time, the cocuyos, as they sail along a few feet above 
the ground, might pass for the glowing cigars of 
horsemen, moving at a trot toward and away from 
one another, and for this reason one may still smoke 
and ride through the long grass within a few yards 
of a Spanish sentry without attracting attention. 

1 The cocuyo (sometimes cocujo) is by far the most bri!li.int insect of its kind 
known to naturalists. Haifa dozen of them confined in a wicker cage will supply a 
light equal to that of a small candle, and in the old slave days they served to illumi- 
nate the cabins of plantation negroes. 

79 



A Cocuyo {actual size). 



80 Marching with Gomez 

By night, this silent open country is safe travel- 
ling. Only stray cattle and roving insurgent bands 
cross it, and there are patches of woods that offer 
hiding places by day. It is a desolate district. 
Wherever country houses have stood, only beds of 
ashes and blackened "dobe" walls, with weed-grown 
gardens, remain, and the railroad line to Camaronas (on 
the Bay of Cochinos) was abandoned early in the war. 

The Hanabana river is easy to ford, for, until the 
rainy season, it is only a rush-grown gully. On 
the eastern side, rich pastures, forests, and canebrakes 
begin and extend to Cienfuegos. 

The district about Cienfuegos is what a Cuban 
would call " muy malo" (very bad), and a Spaniard 
loyal and faithful. That is, there are lots of small 
towns almost within gunshot hearing of each other, 
all of which have guerilla forces, composed of as 
villanous a mob of jail sweepings as could be gathered 
anywhere in the world. These guerillas are the more 
confident and ferocious because in that part of the 
country the Cuban forces have been demoralized, 
and led oftener than otherwise by men who would 
rather run than fight. Atrocities committed by the 
Spanish guerillas about Cienfuegos have been of 
such mediaeval ghastliness that no one ever believed 
them, and reports of them are handled gingerly by 
news editors. 

There are some good insurgent forces, however, 
one of them commanded by Desiderio Marto, a tall 
one-eyed man, who made the forests near Yaguara- 
mas his headquarters, with something less than one 
hundred men, half infantry. Even Marto's men 
could not do very active fighting. Their tactics 



Marto's Men 



consisted in burning cane, shooting at Spanish forts 
by night to keep the soldiers awake, circling around 
the towns, and having small hand-to-hand skirmishes, 
when possible, with the local guerillas; — the semi- 
offensive warfare that lack of ammunition makes 
necessary for the insurgents in Cuba. Marto's men 
rarely camped two nights in the same place, and so 
they were secure against preconcerted attack. The 
camp was ready to move at a moment's notice. All 
they had to do was to throw the camp kettles in a big 
straw pack-saddle on the back of the star mule, blow 
two notes on the whistle, meaning " To horse!" and 
march off through forest paths or among caneflelds 
to some covered spot a mile or so away and camp 
for the night. 

Marto's troopers were noticeably proficient in a 
natural form of the skirmish drill that is so much 
studied by our United States cavalry. They rode 
the country in single or double file, according to 
circumstances. Whenever palm groves and clumps 
of underbrush made a cover to the right or left, 
flankers in twos or threes galloped forward, with- 
out command, sometimes for two hundred yards, 
poking into every thicket that might conceal an 
enemy. 

In the United States cavalry service we have 
a drill in which odd numbers, of specified sets of 
fours, trot or gallop to one side of the column, and 
even numbers to the other, or ahead, as the case 
may be, as scouts and flankers. It would have 
worried an American cavalry officer to see files 
leave the column at will ; but the ease and security 
with which Marto's little force travelled, proved 



Marching with Gomez 



the value of practical training that comes from 
actual experience and necessity. 

There was a dense patch of forest, scarcely half a 
mile across, in the fork of two high-roads, where four 
of Marto's officers had cut a clearing and con- 
structed large and comfortable ranchos for their 
families. This was the safest spot to be found in 
an otherwise dangerous region. Blind paths led to 
the clearing, where you had to climb over trees 
felled diagonally across your way until you became 
sweaty and irritable. The horses were left nearer 
the road, but the inner clearing was sacred — de- 
signed for a place of absolute safety as long as the 
war might last. Consequently even the entrances 
of its two approaches were skilfully concealed, and 
you lifted certain fallen trees and replaced them on 
passing in or out. 

These families were shut off from the world. 
They got their water from natural wells in cavities 
of the limestone, — the sort of limestone you found 
at Pedrosa. Only the officers and their asistentes 
entered occasionally, carrying rations of beef and 
sweet-potatoes, in gunny sacks. On a very small 
scale it was a type of the communities on the south- 
ern coast in the Cienaga Zapata, the great swamp 
lands of the Shoe, inaccessible from the mainland 
except by a narrow trail through everglades and 
jungles, where cattle and wild pigs abound and the 
insurgents have established hospitals, tanneries, and 
workshops. 

Two of the four families were colored, with a 
swarm of naked pickaninnies tugging at their 
mammy's skirts, or burrowing in the red soil. The 



Marto's Men 



83 



girls wore glass beads around their necks like little 
savages. 

When a sudden cloudburst came, for the rainy 
season was setting in, the negro children gathered 
in two black, wriggling broods, peering with white 
eyeballs from the shelter of their ranchos. The 
white children also were naked, as all peasant chil- 
dren under five or six years old are in Cuba, and 
brown as little Indians, with abdomens distended 




<VT 



" When a sudden cloudburst came." 



from vegetable diet. They were less neat than the 
blacks, or perhaps the soil on their bodies showed 
more — they were only decently clean for half an 
hour every other dav, when their mothers washed 
them all over. The fimilies were friendly enough, 
but instinctively whites and blacks kept apart. 

When the rain fell in torrents, onlv a vigorous 
shovelling kept the floors of the ranchos from 
flooding, but nobody minded that, and there was 



84 Marching with Gomez 

a sense of security very unusual in that part of the 
Island. 

Captain Benigno Ortiz, a thickset colored man, 
with a positively refined softness of manner and 
speech, was my host. He was a devoted father, 
and confessed to me, as he sat in the midst of his 
family, — "I am naturally valiant, especially if I 
forget myself, but when I think of these children I 
feel fear of bullets." Thinking of his pickaninnies, 
Ortiz was always studying and devising fresh obsta- 
cles for the paths leading to the world of war and 
danger outside. " I could alone with fifty cartridges," 
he said, " hold one of these entrances against an 
entire guerilla." 

Ortiz was by birth a native of Santo Domingo, and 
spoke a purer Spanish than the average Cuban. The 
ambition of his life was to send his two little boys to 
the United States, — "even as far as Jacksonville" to 
be educated. " For learning," he said, "is the comfort 
of life, and in the United States there is great learning, 
even more perhaps than in Havana or Spain." 

There were two roosters, two parrots 'and five 
hens in the settlement, and the roosters caused all 
the trouble. They crowed continually, and their 
crowing, when the moon was high and the forest 
still from the song of wild birds, could be heard to 
a great distance. "This," said Ortiz, "is danger- 
ous, and these roosters should be killed. They 
imperil the lives of our children, even of our 
wives." But the wife of the man who owned the 
roosters, a white woman, was obstinate. " When 
have the Spaniards ever thought of coming here, 
I'd like to know," she said, "and besides, one is a 



Marto's Men 85 



very fine game-cock that was loaned to us to keep." 
There were daily discussions on this point, and the 
proprietress of the roosters, whose husband was 
away in service, finally cut out the tongue of one of 
them as a compromise, but it was found that the 
cock crowed almost as loudly as before, only it was 
a labored, unmusical performance. "When an alarm 
comes," whispered Ortiz, impressively, " I will cut 
their throats," and the matter was temporarily 
dropped. 

The children's games were all warlike. They 
played Spain and Cuba with sticks for guns, and 
carried on skirmishes in the underbrush. Some- 
times it was a game of prefectura, where one child 
hid a broom horse in the thicket and another 
played Spaniard and scouted about with a wooden 
machete to find and kill it. The first sound the 
babies mastered was " Alto, quien va ? Cuba," and 
"Pah, Pah," " Poom, poom, poom," — for often 
sounds of shots came from the high-road, and the in- 
fants learned to distinguish between the bark of the 
Mauser and the slow detonation of the Remington. 

There was at this time, as guest of the woman 
who owned the roosters, Madame Paulina Ruiz 
Gonzales, wife of Captain Rafael Gonzales, an officer 
of Pancho Perez, brigadier-general of the Santa 
Clara division. Some months before she had left 
her home in Corral Falso by night, and met a party 
of insurgents on the outskirts of the town. 

She rode off, astride an extra horse, to the force 
of Manolo Menendez, where her husband was at 
the time. She was too plucky and too proud to 
be one of the impedimenta, so she begged Pancho 



86 



Marching with Gomez 



Perez to let her carry the flag. Two days after she 
carried the standard 1 very gallantly under a hot 
shower of Mauser bullets, and 
was appointed lieutenant for 
bravery. On the fifth of Feb- 
ruary, at Mango Largo, she led 
in two machete charges against 
the guerilla of Corral Falso. 
With the standard slung from 
her left arm, she rode with a 
machete in the front rank, 
beside Pancho Perez himself. 
Here she gave the machete 
to two guerrilleros. One she 
struck three times, shouting 
" Viva Cuba Libre," and 
cut him down from his sad- 
dle. Both lay dead on the 
field when the guerilla re- 
tired. She had two horses 
shot under her. One in 
the engagement of Villa de 
Habaco, on the last day of 
March, and the other when 
Manolo Menendez' troop 
rode into an ambuscade 
near Bolondron. She had already taken part in ten 
battles and skirmishes, always under gun-fire, and 
where the machetes fell oftenest, but she had never 
been wounded. 




The "flag captain" and her 
autograph. 



1 With both Lacret and Gomez, flags were packed away in some staff officer's 
saddle-bags, and displayed only on grand occasions, when a flag-pole was cut and 
trooper detailed to carry it. 



Marto's Men 87 



Madame Gonzales wore a linen coat and a short 
skirt that showed a pair of striped trousers beneath. 
She was twenty-one years old and very pretty, with 
regular features, soft dark eyes, glossy black hair 
that curled over her forehead, and a gentle, per- 
suasive voice. She was slim as a poplar and very 
graceful. 

They told me she held an honorary commission 
from Pancho Perez as capitana banderada or flag 
captain. General Perez was then lying wounded in 
a field-hospital in the peninsula Zapata, and she was 
awaiting his return, to once more carry the standard 
of the Santa Clara division. 

When I met Madame Gonzales, she had lost her 
hat, and I made her accept my own, an American 
cow-puncher's sombrero, and showed her how to 
give it the proper " Denver poke." This readiness 
on my part to incur sunstroke paved the way to an 
interview. 

" Were you ever afraid ? " I asked. 

" Gracious ! no, Senor," she answered, with a 
little laugh. The thought that one could expe- 
rience fear seemed to amuse her mightily. 

" Did you not feel' a little strange when you 
heard the first volley and saw men falling about 
you r 

" No, no, Senor, I never felt afraid in my life, 
but in my first action I was impatient. My horse 
could not go to the enemy quick enough. I rode 
my first charge without giving the machete to any 
one. We were all hurried together and crowded from 
this side and from that. I saw the machetes fia^h 
near me, and heard the rattle and clash, but I found 



Marching with Gomez 



no one in front of me. Then it was all dust and 
the enemy had gone. Our men were all crowding 
about the flag, and cheering, but figure to yourself, 
Senor, I had met nobody and I felt I had come 
out for nothing, though they told me the centre 
where I rode cut the line of soldiers right in two. 
As for me, I heard shots and the dust choked me, 
and I was crowded to this side and that but I could 
strike no one, and I had to put my machete back, 
feeling that I had not struck for Cuba." 

" Would you like to kill a Spaniard ? " I asked. 

" But no, Senor, I would not for the world kill 
any one, but figure to yourself, when you ride 
against an enemy, that is a different thing. You 
strike for Cuba and you think only of Cuba. I 
have struck with the machete, but it was not as if 
I had hurt any one. They fell, but you know it 
was for Cuba and I would not hurt any one." x 

1 Interesting stories have been published about Amazons in the Cuban field, but 
Madame Gonzales was the only one it was my fortune to meet. 

There are women, mostly negresses, with some of the smaller local forces who 
have followed their husbands, sharing the hardship of the always moving camp and 
the chances of a stray bullet. They carry machetes, as tools rather than weapons, 
wear bloomers, even trousers, and sleep in hammocks or on bits of rubber cloth on 
the hard ground ; but they do not fight in the skirmish line with rifle or shotgun, 
like the men, for they form part of the impedimenta. With the impedimenta, 
they remain in the rear when the attacks are made, or are hurried off in advance 
of the main force when it is time to retire. 

Gomez disapproves of women in the field, and calls it an "escandalo. " The 
" old man " does not permit even heroines in his own camp. 



Chapter IX 
The Zone of Cienfuegos 




H 



O W the prefect of Sole- 
dad escaped nervous 
prostration I never 
could understand. He 
lived with his attractive wife and 
two pretty little blonde daugh- 
ters in a comfortable thatched 
cottage, not three hundred yards 
from the high-road in the de- 
moralized zone of Cienfuegos. 
Soledad was only two leagues 
from Cartagena, an equal dis- 
tance from Santiago, and a 
short half-day's march from 
both Las Lajas and Santo Do- 
mingo, — all towns with jail- 
bird guerillas that rivalled each 
other in outrage and villany. 

The prefect had four men under him, two of 
whom scouted the roads by day and two by night. 
Luckily the country about Soledad was wooded and 
there was a fair chance of escape, even in case of 
surprise. The prefect always wore an anxious look, 
and his reply to a salutation was invariably, " No 
hay novedad (There is nothing new)." 



' He wore an anxious 
look." 



9o 



Marching with Gomez 



The prefect of Soledad was by turns butcher for 
the pacificos of the neighborhood and green grocer 
for the civil and military commissions that frequently 
crossed the Cienfuegos district, going eastward or 
westward, and his duties of killing beef, gathering 
vegetables from the peasants, or attending to his 
private farming, kept him very busy. 



COLON 









f/RA. toSsjui. A&QrAgde,- 

r SANTO 

Domingo 



' /ttsou a** I KA * \g San ta 

I 1 Marcos jN«»f*QCLARA 



C 1 L&.sRoa.a.s 



Coto^T\\Xoy\ 



Sinjuar) it 



./•CaAlT&O 






Mzp 0/ fAe ^o«<? of Cienfuegos, showing its numerous garrisoned towns 
and principal railroads. 



In spite of the constant danger that was part of 
his home life, the prefect sometimes went out of his 
way, as I thought, to look for trouble. 

On one occasion, with a cabecilla named Pepe 
Aguilar and only three men, we took supper at a 
house on the highway scarcely a quarter of a mile 
out of Cartagena, leaving our horses hitched in the 
yard while one man mounted guard at the gate. 



The Zone of Cienfuegos 91 

The visit was an interesting one, especially as the 
hostess was a woman noted for her patriotism, who 
had recently equipped a field-hospital with drugs 
purchased at her own expense and smuggled out 
from town beneath her skirts ; but had the guerilla 
of Cartagena known we were there, they might have 
given us a rub to escape. 

The insurgents have a proneness to this sort of 
recklessness. I remember dining with Lacret and 
several of his officers outside of his camp one night, 
on invitation from a peasant. It was an adventure 
of the sort- that cost the Cubans one of their most 
distinguished generals, Bruno Zayas, who, with two 
officers of his staff, accepted the hospitality of a 
pacifico, were betrayed, and surrounded by a force 
sent to capture them. Zayas shot himself, and his 
officers were cut down, game to the last. It was 
from exposing themselves to treachery in a similar 
manner that a Colonel Sanchez and five of his men 
were caught and shot near Sagua a few months later, 
and more recently Brigadier Aranguren swells the 
list of victims of misplaced confidence. 

This Pepe Aguilar, by the way, was a thickset, 
bullet-headed young man, of genial bearing, but not 
a very soldierly character, for he always seemed to 
be foraging on his own account, or making love to 
peasant girls near the town by night, and sleeping by 
day when his force courted ease in the woods. As 
a sample of his discipline, the prefect and I once rode 
into his camp at midnight without being challenged. 

Another instance of demoralization was the con- 
dition of the force of a negro named Aniceta. 1 

1 Major Aniceta Hernandez. 



9 2 



Marching with Gomez 



The prefect had found in the woods remains of 
cattle killed without his knowledge, and I was with 
him when he tracked and discovered the perpetra- 
tors and found them to be members of Aniceta's 
force, who maintained a little prefecture of their own 
in the forests, where they lived in lawless ease and 
did no fighting. 

Some weeks afterwards, with Gomez, I saw this 
force again. Rumors of their inac- 
tivity had reached the commander, 
and he sent one of his fighting regi- 
ments to the Cienfuegos district to 
gather them all in, and had them 
drawn up before him in his camp at 
Pozo Azul, near the Camaguey border. 
There the old general gave them a 
lecture that made them wince more 
than the steel of the Spaniards. Every 
man of them felt that the eye of the 
great war chief was on him personally. 
He had heard, he said, that they had 
been macheted, cut up, and_made to 
run like sheep by a small Spanish 
guerilla. He had travelled the entire length of the 
Island and had never heard of such a disgraceful thing 
before. He would put them, he said, in the future 
where they would have to fight ; and he thereupon 
divided them up among his forces, giving instructions 
that every one of them should be put as often as pos- 
sible in a place of danger. As for Aniceta himself, 
he must have overslept, for he was captured by 
Captain Piniera of the Lajas Guerilla and shot in 
the town of Las Lajas. 




Type of an elderly 
Maja. 



The Zone of Cienfuegos 93 

These forces were what they called " Majaces." 
That is, composed of men who carry arms and look 
valiant, but live on the country and do not fight. 
They get their name from a huge snake, called 
" Maja," that kills chickens and destroys hens' eggs. 
It is a big, dangerous-looking reptile, but perfectly 
harmless. 

Another Maja officer of the district was Captain 
Pinos, who commanded thirty men, and was the 
most candid specimen, for a timid man, I had ever 
seen. Pinos always ran at the first shot, and never 
denied it, for he judged that life in the long grass 
was too pleasant to be sacrificed lightly. He was 
an ox-eyed, middle-sized man, with flowing dark 
moustachios and a sad agree-with-you-sir-perfectly- 
I-am-a-blackguard manner. Without a blush, he 
told how the Santo Domingo 
guerilla had nearly captured him 
the day before. It was a story 
of a long chase, where the fol- 
lowers of Pinos owed their lives 

to the endurance of their horses - T~~'^\\V 

1 t 1111 Ca-v 1 ^ y >ii 

alone. It was a gallop through 'Plw rvr XN ^ 

the forest, every man for him- s.\*»o. ) 

self, with the relentless guerilla 

in full cry behind. Four horses gave out, and the 

first of the pursuers did not even stop to machete 

the riders, but left them for the blades behind. But 

Pinos and the bulk of his men finally got away in 

the forest. 

A lieutenant of Pinos', who stood by, told how 

he also escaped by a miracle. With his young 

mulatto asistente, Chicho, he was left in the ex- 




94 Marching with Gomez 

treme rear. Three of his comrades had already 
fallen, and his own horse was panting and weak- 
kneed and could not last much longer. In the 
middle of a deep arroyo, Chicho's horse planted 
his feet in the mud and refused to move. The 
lieutenant's horse just behind halted in his tracks 
too. Then Chicho turned in his saddle. "Hide 
in the swamp grass, Lieutenant," he said, and the 
officer slid from his horse and ran for a few paces 
to a fallen palm tree, behind which, in the deep 
mud and undergrowth, he threw himself at full length 
and lay without moving. He scarcely dared to 
breathe, and his heart, he said, "worked like the 
big driving wheel of an engine in a sugar-mill." 
In a moment, the guerrilleros were upon Chicho, 
and he fell from his saddle under blows without a 
word. 

Half a dozen of the guerrilleros urged their horses 
in pursuit past the arroyo. Others stopped to " cal- 
entar la sangre (warm their blood) " with a hack at 
Chicho's body, causing a blockade in the narrow 
trail behind. " There must be another nanigo : 
about here," shouted an officer, pushing past the 
files and galloping by. " No, my captain," said one 
of the guerrilleros, " it is the horse of one whom I 
shot myself from the saddle some distance back." 

Then one of them took Chicho's belt and machete 
as souvenirs, and the guerilla moved on. Pinos' 
lieutenant lay motionless, half covered with slimy 
water, not daring to lift his head until dark. 

Then with his story, he found his way back to 

1 Nanigo : a term of reproach. According to Bonsai it was originally applied to 
negroes addicted to mysterious voodoo practices. 



The Zone of Cienfuegos 95 

Soledad. Whether he waited to bury Chicho or 
not, he never said. 

The flight of Pinos was similar to one described to 
me by Captain Mario Carillo, an assistant of the Ad- 
ministrator of Finance of Las Villas, 1 who travelled 
through this district a short time before I did, under 
escort of a force very similar in character to Pinos'. 
They encountered a guerilla and fled precipitately, 
though Carillo told me the numbers of the two 
forces were nearly equal. The rebels ran as fast as 
their grass-fed horses could go, with the guerilla 
trotting along a hundred yards behind. When a 
horse gave out, the rider was left to shift for himself, 
his comrades scarcely looking over their shoulders. 
The guerilla kept up the pursuit, led by a tall 
mulatto who lifted his right knee indolently to the 
pommel of his saddle and macheted stragglers with 
that up and down chopping stroke from the shoulder 
that native Cubans know how to give. It is the 
stroke of the forester when he clears brush from a 
wood-path, not the long, swinging cut of the trained 
cavalryman, who leans out of his saddle and strikes 
with the full weight of his body, but it is nearly as 
effective. 

One of the insurgent party on a slow horse found 
himself last in the retreating line, but he did not 
despair. The way was narrow and riders could onlv 
pass each other with difficulty. He dug his spurs 
Frantically into his horse's flanks, and crowded on 
the rider in front of him. Drawing his revolver, 
he covered his comrade from behind, shouting, 
" Halt, you coward ! turn about and fight ! " The 

1 Colonel Ernesto Fonts y Sterling. 



g6 Marching with Gomez 

trooper reined up in surprise, and the man with the 
slow horse, taking advantage of his momentary hesi- 
tation, brushed hurriedly past. Holding up each 
trooper in turn, the man on the slow horse worked 
his way along the line until he led the retreat, and, 
needless to say, escaped unharmed. 

Another queer character was Colonel Aoulet, 
lieutenant-governor of the district of Cienfuegos. 
He had a very small force under him, acting as a 
sort of body-guard. He was very reckless, and 
would pass the night anywhere at all without bother- 
ing to post sentries, seeming to rely entirely on his 
ability to jump and run in any given emergency. It 
was very difficult to tell just how many men Aoulet 
did have, because his escapes were so sudden that he 
usually left most of them behind. He was always 
devising complicated schemes for destroying the 
Spaniards, and at this time he was at work on a 
history of the war in Cuba, which he wrote of even- 
ings, in a heavy notebook that he carried with him. 

I spent one night with Aoulet, in a peasant's cot- 
tage on the "King's High-road," just out of Carta- 
gena, and most of that night I sat up listening to 
the distant baying of dogs, and awaiting the arrival 
of a guide the local sub-prefect had promised to 
send me. I was the only man in the party awake. 
These unmilitary methods did not appeal to me, 
and I was glad to leave Aoulet to make and record 
history without my assistance. 

There were exceptions to the general demoraliza- 
tion, for all the Cienfuegos cabecillas were not ma- 
jaces. Marto was certainly a most conscientious and 
active officer, and I was once with Manolo Menen- 



The Zone of Cienfuegos 97 

dez near Santa Rosa, when with forty armed men 
he went out of his way to attack two Spanish gue- 
rillas combined, nearly two hundred strong. 

On that occasion Menendez led a helter skelter 
attack, shouting, " All who have long machetes to 
the front ! " but the gringos were too numerous, 
and after an exchange of shots, we retired. Menen- 
dez got a pistol bullet in his upper arm, and we 
squirted carbolic acid into it, and then tied it up 
with an old white shirt. One of " ours " was killed. 1 

For nearly a week I remained about Soledad, 
trying to get a guide or a small escort to cross the 
railroad line into the Santa Clara district, for Gomez 
was now reported to be circling between Sancti 
Espiritu and Santa Clara city. From Sagua to 
Cienfuegos the railroad was very carefully guarded. 
There were forts the entire length of the route, at 
short distances from each other, and large garrisons 
in adjacent towns. 

This important railroad was called the Central 
Trocha. It was patrolled by night, and the roads 
crossing it were often well ambuscaded. In fact, 
every effort was made by the Spaniards to prevent 
communication between the rebel forces on either 
side of the line. It was therefore safest to slip 
quietly through the trocha with a very small party 
and a good guide, or cross it in a weak spot with a 
force numerous enough to take care of itself. 

1 It is interesting to note that put under different irfluences these Cienfuegos 
forces act differently, although recruited from the same material. If the leader likes 
fighting, the men will fight pluckily ; if he likes to run, they will run with equal 
cheerfulness. 



Chapter X 

Typical Atrocities — The Olayita Massacre 1 

N the second of 
May I rode with 
the force of Major 
Manolo Menendez 
near the town of Soledad. 
evening we passed by 
l little hamlet of half a 
dozen houses. The 
peasants recognized 
us as insurgents 
and came out to 
meet us in great 
excitement. This 
was their story : — 
The Spanish 
"His hat . . . remained." guerrilleros of Las 

Rodas had passed 
there that morning, and, finding no insurgents to 
fight, they halted before the house of Desiderio 
Vida, a man of thirty, who supported his mother, 
his wife and children, by his labor as a small farmer. 
The captain of the guerilla entered the house with 

1 See also the story of the murder of the American correspondent, Charles 
Govin. Appendix C. 

98 




Typical Atrocities 99 

three of his men and addressed Vida, in the presence 
of his family, with abuse and profanity. 

"Thou art a Mambi. Come, scoundrel, tell us 
what thou knowest of the Mambis." 

Vida protested that he knew nothing. Calling 
him a traitor, a shameless one and a nanigo, thev 
dragged him from his house and took up their 
march, leading him, with his arms tied above the 
elbows, off among the canefields until he was lost 
to sight of his home. The neighbors dared not 
follow, and there were no witnesses of the mur- 
der. 

Desiderio Vida was led from the roadside into a 
little arroyo or gully. Here he was cut down, and 
his body was left, to be found by his neighbors, after 
the departure of the guerilla. " We will bury him," 
said Menendez ; "you shall see how thev mutilate 
our people." 

Vida had been buried already when we got there, 
but I saw the place where he fell, the hollow in the 
tall grass, and the blood that stained the plants as 
thickly as when you have slaughtered a bullock; 
his straw hat — a verv faded old hat, that no one 
cared to carry away — remained. There was a cut 
in the brim an inch from the band, where a stroke 
of the machete had fallen. It must have sunk in 
his shoulder. With the next blow, the crown was 
clett, and the clotted blood inside was scarcely dry 
when I saw it. 

The excitable nature of the Latin, if it feels fear, 
must suffer terriblv. There were distinct indica- 
tions that the victim had been ill at the stomach 
from fright. 



ioo Marching with Gomez 

The peasants told me that Desiderio Vida had 
no less than a dozen wounds on his body when 
they found him, and that his left arm was nearly 
severed from his body. This was but a sample of 
the murders that became so frequent in all parts of 
the Island soon after the accession of Weyler. 

One of the peasants who told me the circum- 
stances in the Vida case, had an American wife, a 
red-headed New England woman, who threw up 
her hands and cried, in English, " For Heaven's 
sake, don't tell our names! — they'll kill us all — 
they'll kill us all." 

The terror inspired in the peasantry of Central 
Las Villas by the guerilla bands was pitiable to 
witness ; for no fireside was free from the danger 
of their visits. Men and women existed in dull 
unceasing dread, praying that Mr. Cleveland, "who 
could do anything," would interfere to help them ; 
and the old Spanish proverb, " To-morrow will be 
another day " l had a terrible significance. At the 
sight of an approaching column of horsemen children 
scurried from their parents' doorways to hide in the 
brush, and in the barbed-wire fences enclosing farm- 
yards one found openings through which the families 
might escape more easily to the shelter of canefield, 
or forest. Riding near Villa Clara with an escort 
of twenty Matanzas troopers (armados), who were 
all negroes and scantily clad, a marked contrast to 
the neatly dressed, ribbon-decked men of Las Villas, 
we were frequently mistaken for a Spanish guerilla. 
Passing a cottage, the peasants greeted us with 

1 " Mariana sera otra dia." 



Typical Atrocities 101 

cheerful smiles, though they still trembled from the 
agitation that our first appearance had caused. 

And those who fell into the hands of the guerril- 
leros did not always meet as speedy a death as did 
Desiderio Vida, if one is to trust to the stories one 
hears in the district. The country rang with tales of 
the unspeakable methods employed by the guerilla 
officers in torturing men who were marked for ven- 
geance, and every prefect could furnish memoranda 
of horrors. Many of the atrocities told me by 
scatter-brained pacificos were subsequently repeated 
to me by men of good standing, who had them on 
evidence they believed truthful. I myself saw, when 
with Lacret at Manjuaries, a negro who bore unmis- 
takable physical evidences of having survived tort- 
ures of an unnatural character, which he testified 
had been inflicted upon him by a detachment of 
Spanish soldiers and civil guards, and I obtained 
from Lacret's staff" surgeon a certificate as to the 
nature of the permanent injuries the man received. 
This document, written on odd scraps of paper, I 
have managed to preserve, though it is of interest 
only to medical men. 

I had the fortune to see with my own eyes, and 
sketch with my own pencil, the remains of some 
victims of the Olayita massacre, perhaps the most 
striking atrocity that has taken place during the 
present war. These ghastly evidences of the manner 
in which it is possible for Spanish soldiers to conduct 
themselves, are still to be seen among the ruins of 
the Olayita plantation, fifteen miles to the south- 
west of Sagua la Grande. 



Typical Atrocities 



103 



At Olayita, in the latter part of February, '1S96, 
the Cuban forces of Quintin Bandera skirmished 
with two Spanish columns under the command of 
Colonel Arce. The insurgents took up a position 
about the ingenio of the Olayita plantation, and 
retired southward, after having inflicted a heavy loss 
on the Spanish troops. As soon as the insurgent 
column had marched awav, the Spanish infantry 
made a general charge on the sugar-house and its 




The ingenio, Olayita. 

surrounding buildings. There were no less than 
twentv-three pacificos, innocent non-combatants, 
plantation hands and their families, employed on the 
estate. The administrator was M. Braulio Duarte, 
a French citizen, and the proprietor was a certain 
Domingo Bertharte. 

Here is the story of the massacre, as told without 
variation by peasants of the neighborhood. 

On the approach of the Spaniards, M. Duarte 
locked himself in his house, a small, two-storied 
frame building, lav down on his bed, and wrapped 
himself in the French flag. The troops burst in 



104 Marching with Gomez 

the door, dragged M. Duarte outside, and cut him 
to pieces with their machetes on his own doorstep. 
The flag of France was soaked in blood. 

An indiscriminate slaughter of the plantation 
hands and their families was now begun. Men, 
women, and small children were dragged from their 
homes and cut down in the usual brutal manner. 
The ingenio and all the surrounding buildings, 
the storehouses and the cottages of the plantation 
negroes, were set on fire, and the bodies of the 
victims, dead or dying, were thrown among the 
flames. Only one escaped, a Chinese coolie, who 
succeeded in making the woods near by with six 
Mauser bullet holes in him. 

None of the pacificos, as I have it from in- 
surgent officers who were there, had taken any part 
in the skirmish, but lay, quaking with fear, in their 
houses as long as the firing continued. 

On the sixth day of May, I rode with the cavalry 
squadron of Colonel Robau and Major Saienz over 
the fields of the massacre. It was a hurried-visit, for 
a column was then after us, and I could devote but 
thirty minutes to a study of the remains of the 
butchery that still existed. The sites of the cottages 
and outhouses were gray heaps of ashes. Of the 
sugar-house itself, a tin roof still remained, covering 
a mass of rusty machinery and charred timber. 

In the trunk, under the great driving wheel, I 
counted the charred bodies of seven victims ; upper- 
most of all, wedged between the wheel and the 
masonry, lay a negro woman, with a baby in her 
arms. Her - clothing had been burned away, but 



Typical Atrocities 105 

the charred flesh remained, and a portion of one of 
her leather slippers. Of those parts of the body 
that had been most exposed to the flames, the 
bones were visible. The negress lay in an almost 
natural position, clasping the infant tight to her 
breast with a hugging, clutching embrace that death 
had only intensified. The body of the child was 
but little disintegrated by the flames. The other 
bodies in the pit were reduced to charred skeletons. 
The negress and her child had evidently been the 
last thrown in, and their remains had dried without 
decaying. 

There were other bodies, they told me, in the 
debris of the central part of the building, which had 
fallen in, but I had not time to look for them. I 
was also told that the bodies of two other women 
and two little girls had been thrown into the burn- 
ing cottages and entirely consumed. 

Beneath the ingenio there was a cellar, in which 
were furnaces for heating the great sugar-boilers 
above. There was a little bakeshop in this cellar. 
I went down a short flight of steps to the chamber 
where the furnaces were, and there I found the re- 
mains of a Chinaman, one of the coolies employed 
about the place, perfectly preserved in a mummified 
state. 

I examined the body verv carefully. There were 
wounds of the machete about the back and legs, as 
though the coolie had been driven into the cellar 
with blows, but none of them fatal. The body was 
writhed in intense agony, and the face fixed in an 
expression of extreme horror. Parts of the clothing, 
a loose linen coat and trousers, were singed, and 



io6 



Marching with Gomez 



there was every indication that the man had been 
locked in, and forced to die from the heat of the 
burning ingenio above. The flesh had become 




The body by the furnace underneath the ingenio. 

parchment, and each muscle and line of facial ex- 
pression, drawn by suffering, was intensified by the 
shrinkage of the flesh. 

In the little passage that led to the bakeshop lay 
the body of another Chinaman with a gash of the 
machete in the back of his head. His expression 
and the contortion of his body were similar to those 



Typical Atrocities 



107 



of the first, and distinctly indicated that he must 
have died under the same conditions. On the 
floor by his side lay a paper score of the loaves 
of bread baked for the settlement that morning. 
Though the wound in the back of his head was 
deep and some stains of blood remained on the 
floor, it was evident that he died by the torture 
of heat. 

Three months had passed, and these bodies had 
dried without the slightest trace of decomposition. 




' ' On the floor by his side lay a paper score of the loaves of bread baked that 
morning. ' ' 

Thev probably remain' to this day in as perfect a 
state as when I saw them; and whoever visits Ola- 
yita will probably find in that cellar a good briar- 
wood pipe that I laid down while I stopped to 
sketch the bodies. 



In the cane, fifty yards from the ingenio, I found 
the corpse ot a laborer who had attempted to escape. 
His head was completely severed from his body, and 
the clothing, such as remained, bore traces of ma- 



108 Marching with Gomez 

chete wounds, and was thickened and stiffened with 
dried blood. The shoes and hat had been removed, 
if not by the Spanish soldiers, by the poor people 
living in the neighborhood, who never allow such 
relics to go to waste. Another pacifico, I was told, 
lay in the canes near by, but I did not have time to 
look for him. 

I saw the grave of M. Duarte and that of his 
secretary, for after the massacre took place a Spanish 
officer had given orders to bury them near the ruins 
of their cottages. The remains of eleven of the 
twenty-two victims were as I have described them, 
and will so continue until the Spanish Government 
sees fit to remove them, or so long as the insurgent 
government chooses to preserve them as a relic of 
the war ; for protected from the moisture of the 
rainy season by the cover above, they will be pre- 
served in the pure warm air for an indefinite period 
of time. 

I have been told that a brother of M. Duarte has 
presented the case to the French Consul, and that 
disavowal of the assassination, with a comfortable 
solace to the nearest of kin, is likely to follow. 

I made it a point, in riding over the Island, to 
inquire, in every district, about the latest Spanish 
atrocities. The answer always was like this : — 
" There were five pacificos macheted outside of the 
town last week ! Two weeks ago ten were shot ! " 

Often bodies of pacificos, of all ages, obviously 
laborers and farmers, lying in the canes on estates 
where insurgents were supposed to have camped, or 
thrown in the brush by the roadside, proved these 
statements. Even at this time, when there was 



Typical Atrocities 



109 



some attempt to deny and conceal acts of the kind, 
it would have been a conservative estimate to allow 
twenty pacificos, murdered in an irregular off-hand 
manner, to every town big enough to have its name 
on the map. And this was before Weyler began 
his policy of concentration 1 and reconcentration, that 
has already accomplished a greater destruction ot 
peasant life than one can recall in the annals of 
mediaeval warfare. 

1 What concentration means, Appendix D. 



A> 




J 

A 



Lying among the canes. 



Chapter XI 
Crossing the Line 

I MET Colonel Robau's squadron, with which I 
visited the scene of the Olayita massacre, by a 
mere accident. In fact I was lost, travelling 
with my two servants, an armed man, and a 
guide — who did not know the way. It was a 
splendid force of one hundred men all fully armed, 
and veterans who had swept down the Island with 
Gomez and Maceo six months before in the invasion 
of the western provinces to Pinar del Rio. They had 
just returned from Maceo's command, having cut 
their way through Weyler's big trocha. Robau, 
who is now a brigadier, was not with the force at this 
time, and Major Saienz was in command. 

A little north of Olayita there is a line of forest, 
and here we caught a cow and killed her for break- 
fast. Two Spanish columns had been skirmishing 
through the country the day before, and everything, 
canefields, cottages, even foliage on the borders of 
forests, was aflame. The Spaniards had passed by the 
Olayita estate, and the ruins were smouldering again, 
for they had started a fire under the already charred 
timbers of the old sugar-house. Everywhere there 
were carcasses of horses and cattle drying in the sun, 
for the Spaniards were killing all the live-stock they 



Crossing the Line i i i 

could find. One big white stallion galloped limp- 
ing after our party, attracted by the other horses, 
and I tried to catch it, but it was frightened and 
would not let me get near. I could see, however, 
that its hindquarters were hacked with machetes, 
its tail was nearly cut off, and one of its hindlegs 
was partly hamstrung. The temptation to shoot 
it was strong, as it is in the western plains to shoot 
the maimed cattle one finds dying slowly by the rail- 
road tracks, or worried by packs of pitiless coyotes ; 
but ammunition was precious. 

We camped that night in the woods north of 
Olayita. Early on the following morning there was 
an alarm of " Boots and Saddles ! " for a party was 
seen approaching in our trail, that might be a gue- 
rilla, — perhaps the advance guard of the column 
that had been burning the cane the day before. 
This turned out to be a mistake. They were old 
friends, — a detachment of Lacret's escolta with 
Camaguey in command. Lacret's wound had been 
bothering him excessively and he was laid up for 
rest, in a little prefectura near by, with half of his 
escort. He had sent a platoon with Camaguey 
to carry me to Gomez, who was now reported to 
be very near, on the other side of the Sagua line. 
There were twenty men, all good big negroes, and 
I now had escort enough to cross the line under any 
circumstances. 

That evening we marched to within half a mile 
of the railroad, but we did not cross because there 
was some delay in getting a guide, and besides it 
was raining heavily ; so we camped on a deserted 
farm, and the officers made a cow-shed, consisting 



ii2 Marching with Gomez 

of a thatched roof and upright supports (there are 
no barns in Cuba), their headquarters. All these 
structures, like the peasants' huts, are alive with 
fleas that live in the clay soil of the floors ; there- 
fore we went through the performance of tearing 
palm thatch from the roof, lighting it in torches, 
and giving the floor a flame-bath and a coat of 
ashes to kill them. We did this until the fleas 
were supposed to be dead. Then those of us who 
had hammocks swung them under the uprights, 
and- the rest turned in on the ground. 

Next day the rain fell in constant showers. We 
killed two steers for the entire party in the evening, 
and got ready to cross the railroad line a little be- 
fore sundown. A train passed, and we could see 
the smoke and hear the armored cars feeling their 
way along. When darkness came, the column got 
under way. We forded the Sagua river and rode 
across pastures and between hedges, and through 
the farmyards of a little settlement. It was dark and 
stormy. We stole along slowly, halting at times, 
waiting for the scouts to examine the country ahead, 
and then advancing again. Saienz was not anxious 
to skirmish with the patrols, because his men had 
scarcely five rounds of ammunition apiece and had 
no idea when they could get any more. The peas- 
ants came out and whispered with us as we rode 
along. They gave us cigarettes and cigars that 
they had made themselves. 1 From time to time 
the word was passed from one to another up and 

1 In these central districts of Las Villas, tobacco grows freely, though inferior to 
the tobacco of Vuelto Abajo, which supplies the foreign market. One found many 
slat-sided sheds where the rich leaves hung to dry, and the country people were 
expert in the art of rolling cigars. 



Crossing the Line 113 

down the line, — " There must be no loud talking." 
" We are going to cross : we are going to cross," was 
repeated from man to man. 

Finally there was one long pause. Somebody, 
with a pair of nippers, was cutting the barbed-wire 
fences on either side of the track. Then the order 
came down the line to advance at a trot. The 
whole party clattered over the embankment and 
across the steel rails with a noise that seemed very 
loud after the precautions we had been taking to 
keep silent, and then we took to an open pasture 
on the other side. " Now we are in Free Cuba," 
said Camaguey. A little to the east side of the 
line we halted and bade " Good-by " to Robau's 
men, who rode back at once. We had not ridden 
far when there came shots behind us; — our friends 
had run into a patrol, but Camaguey said it amounted 
to nothing and he guessed they could take care of 
themselves, so we kept on into " Free Cuba," for 
east of the Sagua and Cienfuegos Railway there are 
fewer towns, and up to that time the country had been 
comparatively little harassed by Spanish columns. 

Before making camp that night, we stopped at a 
good-sized farmhouse, and the proprietor offered 
us coffee and home-made cigars. There, was a tall 
young girl, a sallow blonde, who was noted through- 
out the country as an extemporaneous poetess. 
The neighborhood regarded her as a marvel, and we 
listened attentively while she stood gazing up at the 
bunches of roots and herbs that hung from the 
rafters above, and solemnly recited sonorous rolling 
verse with an inspired look. There was no apparent 
beginning or end to these verses, but I took note of 



ii4 Marching with Gomez 

some fragments, of a patriotic character, which I 
reproduce without a direct attempt at translation : — 

Salgan traidores, tiranos, que los esperan el Mambi 
Con la dulzura de aqui del bello tipo Cubano 
Salgan a explorar villanos, las fuertes contribucion.es 
Salgan a operaciones para que cobran vilmente 
Trozo de plomo caliente, de los cincuenta millones. 

Publica Aurora Brillante, al Cubano con razon, 
Siguiera la Insurreccion, sin detener un instante, 
Machete y bala constante hasta con ella acabar, 
Salgan, tiranos a implorar de nuestro mano el perdon, 
Que sera la salvacion, que Espana podra alcanzar. 

Ahora se va nuestro general valiente que marcha 

Pinar del Rio ; su mandato y poderio, 

Procede severamente, dirije su contingente 

La grandeza de Ultramar ya no podran disfrutar. 

De racimo de la uva porque, 

Su querida Cuba, Maceo se la va quitar 

Colon, Cienfuegos, Matanzas, y en Remedios 

Guerreros de confianza, cobardes cojen sus lanzas 

Preparan sus batallones, salgan en operaciones, 

Detengan el contingente, y veran pelear decente 

Estos vaiientes campeones. 

The music and rhythm of these lines would be 
lost in English. They sing of the tyrant legions 
that sally forth at dawn and of the vigilant rebel who 
watches their movements from afar, of the insurrec- 
tion spreading everywhere, of the machetes that will 
remain drawn until the final triumph of the insur- 
gent arms, and of the tyrants begging peace and 
pardon in the end. They exult in Maceo's march 
to Pinar del Rio, his tried warriors (guerreros de 
confianza) checking the timid battalions and finally 
grasping from Spain her beloved Cuba. 



Crossing the Line 



"5 



These lines, which a scholarly Cuban gentleman 
tells me outrage every known rule of metrical com- 
position, were nevertheless very impressive as de- 
livered by the sallow poetess. After her tribute to 
Maceo and his followers she diverted her inspiration 
to our party in a most complimentary way, dwelling 
on the patriots risking a bad pass (the central 
trocha) travelling tirelessly to meet the great general 
(Gomez), and of the bold correspondent from the 




" We were challenged by an advance guard of Gomez' escort. 



frozen north (myself), who would spread tales of 
Cuban heroism abroad. The gift of extempora- 
neous verse-making is not an uncommon one among 
the Cubans. 

That night we camped on a hill from which the 
lights of the town of Esperanza could be seen dis- 
tinctly ; and took up the march toward Santa Clara 
at dawn the following morning. Our guides from 
stage to stage were men from the local prefecturas — 
and Ca maguey signed receipts for their services 
with great show of formality. From one of them 
we learned that Gomez was now scarcely six 
leagues away, and for the very first time in my field 



n6 



Marching with Gomez 



experience, news of Gomez' whereabouts proved 
true. At noon, two days later, near the town of 
Camaguani, our party was hailed from a neighbor- 
ing hilltop and challenged by an advance guard of 
Gomez' own escort. Half an hour afterwards we 
climbed a hill that commanded a broad view of the 
fertile valley of the little river called Sagua la Chica, 
where the smoke of burning farmhouses and volleys 
like the rolling of distant thunder indicated the pres- 
ence of a Spanish column. On the summit of the 
hill we found the commander-in-chief in camp, with 
his staff, under a cow-shed; while the horses of his 
escolta, grazing on the slopes below, and wisps of 
smoke from a score of scattered parillas, told that the 
command was resting from the morning's march. 

As we filed past headquarters, a straight little 
white-bearded man, in a gray cloth suit and riding 
boots, with two golden stars on either lapel of his 
coat, came out to meet us, peering with a sharp eye 
from beneath his broad hat brim, that was cocked a 
little to one side, while a group of neatly dressed 
officers remained at a distance behind. 

This was Gomez, the man who has made his 
name famous in three continents. 




/A ARCHING WITH 
©OAEZ 




T XL1BEHW ) 





Chapter I 
The Man under the Hub 




H 



E is a gray little man. His 
clothes do not fit well, and, 
perhaps, if you saw it in a 
photograph, his figure might 
seem old and ordinary. But the mo- 
ment he turns his keen eyes on you, 
they strike like a blow from the shoul- 
der. You feel the will, the fearless- 
ness, and the experience of men that is 
in those eyes, and their owner becomes 
a giant before you. 
•■ Gomez' little He is a farmer by birth, the son of 
Santo Domin- f arrner , with an Anglo-Saxon tenacity 

go machete. _ ' . ° c , 

of purpose, and a sense or honor as 
clean and true as the blade of his little Santo Do- 
mingo machete. 

When the revolution broke out in Santo Do- 
mingo, he served as a lieutenant in the Spanish 
army against the land of his birth, in her struggle 
for independence. 1 He was fighting for rank, I 
have heard him say ; but the example of the Domin- 

i " Not so much to serve Spin as in reality to combat one of the many political 
hands that in that time divided San Domingo, did General Gomez become one of 
those that proclaimed the re-establishment of Spanish rule on that bland." So wrote 
an eminent Cuban whom I questioned on this point. 



120 Marching with Gomez 

ican patriots, and the methods of his brother sol- 
diers, made him think. In later years he came to 
believe with the Cubans that Cuba should be free, 
and when others dared only whisper, he proclaimed 
his sympathies, and was relieved oFa captain's com- 
mission in consequence. 

When the Ten Years' War broke out, in 1868, 
Gomez, and Modesto Diaz, another Dominican and 
ex-Spanish officer, were among the first to offer their 
swords to the insurgents. Both were experienced 
soldiers, energetic and of the character of iron. 1 

" In great part the successful resistance of the 
Cubans, during the first years of the war, was due to 
the unwavering resolution of Diaz and Gomez." — 
So wrote a correspondent of the New York Her- 
ald, James J. O' Kelly, who visited the insurgents in 
Oriente in 1873 an{ ^ ma de an extensive study of 
Spanish prison interiors in consequence. 

Of Diaz, a story is told that illustrates the extraor- 
dinary value, at that time, of a man accustomed to 
irregular warfare. 

When the insurgents besieged Bayamo, early in 
the war, a Spanish column of seven hundred men 
hurried from Manzanillo, under the command of a 
Colonel Campillo, to raise the siege. Had they 
arrived, defeat would have met the rebels in their 
first important undertaking, and the insurrection 
might have died in its infancy. Diaz, with a dozen 
armed peasants who had never heard a shot fired, 

1 After resigning his commission in the Spanish army, Gomez cultivated with 
his own hands a small farm near Bayamo. While at his toil, the Resolution of 
1868 broke out and he left the plough to enlist in the rebel armv as a private soldier. 
Gomez thus became the Cincinnatus of the patriots of the Antilles. After the close 
of the Ten Years' War, Gomez accepted a commission in the army of Honduras. 



The Man under the Hub 121 

and two hundred slaves carrying machetes, awaited 
the regulars at the ford of the river Babatuaba. 

As the advance guard attempted to cross, Diaz, 
who was a good shot, opened fire on them from 
behind a stout ceiba tree. The twelve peasants lay 
in the brush out of danger, loading the pieces and 
passing them to Diaz, who sustained such a rapid 
and telling fire that the troops imagined their ad- 
vance disputed by a strong party. The advance 
guard fell back. When the two hundred cane-cut- 
ters came crashing through the brush, seemingly a 
wing of the entire Cuban army, hesitation was suc- 
ceeded by retreat. Next day Bayamo surrendered. 

Starting in as a drill master, Gomez worked grad- 
ually to the front and was given command of the 
Central Department on the death of General Agra- 
monte. The Cubans were then hampered by a 
complicated civil government, and a cabinet coun- 
cil that insisted on attempting to conduct the war. 
Gomez proposed the plan of invasion, with the idea 
of carrying the rebellion boldly from the forests and 
mountains of Oriente and Camaguey to the gates 
of Havana, thus bringing to open rebellion a pop- 
ulous country wherein disaffection had hitherto 
smouldered beneath the surface like Nihilism in 
Russia. 

But the council would not consent ; they dis- 
agreed, hesitated, and disapproved. An invasion 
was deemed a wild undertaking, so Gomez gave 
the Spaniards the battle of Las Guasimas, where 
over six hundred soldiers were cut down by 
machetes. It was a brilliant victory ; but ammuni- 
tion was far scarcer in those days even than now, 



122 Marching with Gomez 

and men were less plentiful, because the war was 
conducted in a dilatory manner. Gomez' force was 
too crippled in resources even to hope to march 
into the enemy's country. 

So the Ten Years' War degenerated into a sectional 
struggle, and never, at its heat, had as many as 
eight thousand properly armed men. 1 Even then 
it was a class question, enrolling almost entirely the 
aristocratic Cuban-born planters, and the slaves to 
whom they had given freedom. It did not appeal 
practically to the peasants, who dared not offer 
more than their sympathies ; for them there was too 
much to lose and too little to gain. 

As the revolution remained sectional, so the 
wealth of Cuba, the canefields of the central provinces 
and the tobacco of Vuelta Abajo, remained unim- 
paired. Spain could support the war from the actual 
products of the Island, and their pawnable value. 

All this Gomez saw ; but it was a case of too 
many cooks, and the cause did not advance. The 
treaty of Zanzon, with its luminous Castilian 
promises of reform, was accepted by the insurgent 
chiefs, — Gomez among them. 

So the war ended. Diaz died after it was over ; 
but Gomez lived to be the man under the hub, to 
whose genius alone is due the credit of having lifted 
the Cuban cause from a rut and pushed it success- 
fully from Cape Maisi to the Point of San Antonio. 

At the beginning of the present war, Gomez was 
offered the command of the forces such as they 
might be or might become ; and he accepted, with 

1 Armados, in the Cuban sense. See note on organization of the Cuban Army, 
Appendix B. 



The Man under the Hub 123 

the distinct stipulation that the commander-in-chief 
of the army should have supreme and exclusive 
control of all military matters. On assuming com- 
mand, therefore, Gomez was free to begin his old 
plan of invasion of the entire Island. He had only 
his thin skirmish line of soldiers, with scarcely four 
rounds of ammunition apiece ; but he had as his 
second in command, Antonio Maceo, — a cavalry 
leader who combined cool judgment and strategic 
capacity with the reckless dash of Custer, — the 
veteran Lacret, and Ouintin Bandera with his negro 
infantry from Oriente. 

In Matanzas and Las Villas small forces had 
already taken the field ; but they had no organiza- 
tion, and were hidden in the forests and mountains 
like bands of robbers ; and by the Spanish authori- 
ties they were regarded as such. 

But the march of Gomez and Maceo into Havana 
Provinces brought the revolution to the door of 
every plantation owner and peasant in the Island. 
The thin skirmish line marched into Havana 
Provinces through a country then occupied by 
upwards of one hundred thousand royal troops, 
taking small towns as it went, seizing small forts, 
and always gaining in numbers and equipment ; for 
everywhere recruits flocked to the tricolor as insects 
swarm about a light. 

By January, 1896, the rebellion had extended 
through the entire Island, and Gomez was able 
to put in force his second plan — that of destruc- 
tion. Proprietors of plantations were forbidden 
to grind cane on pain of having their crops de- 
stroyed ; and many confiding in the protection of 



124 Marching with Gomez 

Martinez Campos saw their plantations go up in 
flames. Others did not grind, and their canefields 
remained standing. In February Weyler came 
in and ordered the planters to resume grinding 
throughout the Island. Then their canefields 
were universally destroyed. 

The burning of cane means only the loss of the 
crop for one year; for fire simply destroys the 
leaves and chars the stalks, leaving the root un- 
harmed. Sugar can be made from burnt cane, 
but it is of poor quality. The planters still at- 
tempted to grind, — many of them grinding with 
burnt cane, according to Weyler's orders. Then 
the insurgents burned not only the cane but the 
sugar-mills also, and millions of invested capital 
went up daily. This was carrying out Gomez' 
idea of destroying everything of value in the 
Island, and depriving Spain of any possible reve- 
nue. Gomez is fond of repeating the story of 
the semi-civilized Indians who once inhabited 
Cuba, and who threw their gold into the rivers 
at the approach of the Spaniards, knowi-ng it to 
be the cause of their persecution. So the invasion 
accomplished not only the spread of the rebellion 
throughout the Island, but it succeeded in cutting 
off" Spain from every possible revenue in that 
direction, and in injuring her credit abroad. 

Gomez has told his own story of the invasion in 
a little book published in one of the secret presses 
in the forests of Oriente, entitled, " My Escort." 

It is a story of the hardships of his landing with 
Jose Marti, the skirmish at Dos Rios in which 
Marti fell, and the meeting with Maceo. He tells 



M. GOMEZ. 



(Boceto Htstorico") 



ORIENTE. 



IMPRENTA r 'ELCUBANO LIBRE." 

189?. 



Title-page of Gomez' pamphlet — two-thirds actual size. 



126 Marching with Gomez 

of the dodging of Spanish troops sent against him 
by Martinez Campos, and especially of the heavy 
line of troops massed by Campos on the boundary 
of Camaguey. When he learned of the last move- 
ment, he said to General Borero, his chief of staff, 
" We are saved. The fact that they try to intercept 
us shows that Camaguey is all ready to take arms, 
and that our friends are waiting to receive us." 

" With my general staff as a nucleus," he writes, 
" I began to organize the army and prepare a plan 
of campaign. 

" By this time General Roloff and Serafin Sanchez 
had successfully landed their expedition near Tunas, 
Sancti Spiritus. The only force I had with me, for 
I did not wish to weaken Maceo's force in Cama- 
guey, was my own escort of a hundred men. I 
cautioned the captain of it to find out the sentiment 
of his men, because I had given my oath not to turn 
back until I had reached the most western provinces ; 
and I wished to be accompanied only by resolute men. 

" ' General,' answered my captain, with the pride 
of a Camagueyano, * these men will follow you any- 
where. They are prepared to march at the hour 
you say wherever you will lead them.' 

" On the last day of October I crossed without 
difficulty the Jucaro Moron trocha into the district 
of Sancti Spiritus. While waiting for Maceo I made 
a campaign of continuous marches and counter- 
marches, with the object of tiring out the enemy with- 
out consuming our ammunition. We had the fortune 
to capture Fort Pelayo with fifty rifles and twenty- 
three thousand rounds of ammunition. After that I 
skirmished round about the city of Sancti Spiritus 




A corporal of Gomez' escort. — Page 127. 

[Enearnacion Herrera, wounded at Desmayo and Mi Rosa, perhaps the tallest sol- 
dier in the Cuban army.] 



The Man under the Hub 127 

and besieged the fort of Rio Grande. I wished to be 
especially active, so as to attract the attention of the 
Spaniards and leave an easy passage of the trocha open 
to Maceo, whom I knew to be advancing at the head 
of his division of the invading army. We were now 
well under way and ready to move into Las Villas. 
The activity and heroism of General Maceo did the 
rest. Without firing a shot, Maceo crossed the 
trocha on the 29th of December and we met at San 
Juan and matured our plans for the invasion. 

" The first step was taken, and thus the most dif- 
ficult part of the work was accomplished. Any hesi- 
tation, a step backward, a defeat at this time, would 
have been extremely dangerous for the revolution. 
We had to march forward, boldly and continuously, 
trusting in fortune and our knowledge of the country. 

" On the 2d day of December we met the enemy 
at La Reforma, on the 3d day we were victorious 
at Iguara, on the 9th at Casa de Tejas, on the nth 
and 1 2th at Boca del Toro. Afterward came Mai 
Tiempo, Calimete, Coliseo, and Guira de Melena. 

" I do not propose to relate the details of the 
rough, almost daily combats that marked the inva- 
sion of 1895-96, in all of which my aides-de-camp 
and the men of my escort were to be seen in the 
front ranks. It is only necessary for me to give a 
list of my personal staff and of my escort, includ- 
ing the names of those who have fallen, and a list of 
the wounds received by those who are still with me. 
Many have fallen, but they have been worthily 
replaced by volunteers. Very few I have chosen 
myself. In this manner the ranks of the brilliant 
train of patriotic young men who have been at my 



128 Marching with Gomez 

side in the hour of danger and who follow me 
to-day have been continually renewed. Let me 
mention for a moment some of the most striking 
characters among my followers : " Here follows a 
list of the principal members of Gomez' staff; from 
which I select Bosa and Migueiito. 

" Miguel Varona (Migueiito) is a boy fourteen 
years old, who has been with me from the first. 
He has the health and the disposition of a grown 
man, and there is no action of all the hard ones that 
we have seen where he was not in the front ranks, 
although sometimes I have desired him to go to the 
rear. 

" Bernabe Bosa, captain of my escort, who ranks 
as colonel, has been promoted from a lieutenant for 
gallantry in the field. He is thirty-eight years of 
age, married, energetic in character, and of amiable 
disposition, beloved by the soldiers. He is a 
splendid rider and swordsman, a sure shot, and a 
man who appears well in both civil and military life. 
He is of great use to me as an interpreter of Eng- 
lish. He saw service first in the war of '68, under 
such generals as Reeve, Benitez, and Morejones. 
He can never forget the tragic end of his father, and 
the sufferings of his mother, who was obliged to 
witness the murder of her two brothers. It is a 
sad family history, but almost every Cuban has a 
similar one. There are very few women in Cuba 
whom Spain has not caused to shed tears — very few 
who do not mourn a son, a husband, or a lover, for 
this is a country that Spain has never loved, but 
has always wished to hold in bondage for lust and 
brutality, as a Sultan holds a slave." 



Chapter II 

Gomez' Staff 

AT first I thought Gomez' staff officers a less 
courteous lot than the aides of Lacret. 
_ They were less inclined to lionize the 
foreigner, and were perhaps rather more 
attentive to their own affairs. But I noticed that 
these aides were alert and prompt in obedience to 
a degree I had not before witnessed in the Manigua. 
Their very appearance was businesslike, for they 
carried carbines, in addition to their pistols and 
machetes of their grade. The soldierly discipline 
inspired by Gomez showed in his staff as it did in 
the men of his escolta, and of the local forces who 
had once been under his eye. 

Gomez never camped in houses. He preferred 
not to inconvenience householders, he said ; and 
besides, he knew that a house is always the first 
point of a sudden attack. There was not, there- 
fore, the general staff mess that I had seen with 
Lacret. 

Every officer above the grade of alferez l — a 
sort of extra second lieutenant — was entitled to 
one asistente. Two staff officers usually messed 
together. One asistente of the combination cooked 

1 Derived from the ancient Castilian title of honor, "standard-bearer." 
k 129 



130 Marching with Gomez 

and did most of the "rustling" for the mess, leav- 
ing to his colleague the care of the horses for all 
four. Colonels, lieutenant-colonels, and majors 
each had two asistentes, and could therefore mess 
comfortably by themselves or in combination. 

In any case, every asistente was supposed to do his 
share of foraging and keep an eye open for patches 
of sweet-potatoes, for trees where the banana-like 
plantain might be cut in luxuriant green bunches, 
for the twining malanga vine with its tuberous root, 
that serves the peasant for bread, — and for every 
sort of fruit that could be found. 

On making camp, when the impedimenta dis- 
persed, the asistentes slung their masters' ham- 
mocks in spots designated by them, and hurried 
to put up the shelter tents of canvas, or hule, or to 
construct ranchos, as covers from sun and rain. 

Occasionally an asistente had a knack of climb- 
ing to the top of the royal palms, — sometimes to 
a height of fifty feet, — by aid of a rope hitched 
about the trunk and about his waist. Then he 
would cut great leaves for thatching, each broad 
enough to shelter a man ; and strips of the green 
pliant bark that grows under the crest of the palm : 
useful as a covering for the ridgepole, or even as an 
impromptu mackintosh. 

These palm trees could also be cut down, but it 
was a long, hard job ; for though the trunks were 
endogenous, mere bundles of soft fibre within, the 
outer bark of a tall tree was an inch thick and hard 
as seasoned oak. 

Some asistentes had great skill in building ran- 
chos, and could put up one in an hour that would 



Gomez' Staff 



U 1 



turn the heaviest storm. The asistentes were always 
negroes, — servants from choice, receiving no pay 
from their masters, but occasionally presents of 
cast-off clothing, tobacco, and spoils of war, if there 
were any. Of course, un- 
less he had a good master, 
the ambition of an officer's 
servant was to get a rifle, 
by some turn of fortune, 
and become an armado, 
though many were happy 
enough to keep out of the \ \ 
firing line. 1' 

The number of Gomez' 
impedimenta varied con- 
tinually. It included the 
servants of officers of the 
forces travelling with him, 
and sometimes scarcely 
counted fifty. The men of 
the impedimenta camped 
with their own commands, 
and formed again for the 
march when camp was 
broken. 

It was Gomez' policy to make widely scattered 
camps ; a policy that led the Spaniards to invariably 
overestimate the strength of his force, and was of 
itself a safeguard in case of surprise ; therefore it 
took more or less time for the impedimenta to 
form ; but never long enough to delay the column ; 
for, except in retreat, the impedimenta marched last, 
just ahead of the rear-guard. The men that com- 




"An impromptu mackintosh. 



132 



Marching with Gomez 



posed it were as freakish in costume and equipment 
as those I had seen with Lacret ; but better mounted, 
because horse-flesh was more plentiful in Las Villas 
than in Matanzas. 

In spite of the non-aggressive disposition of the 
impedimenta, it is on record as having captured a 
garrisoned town. It was during the invasion of 
Havana Province by Gomez and Maceo, when the 

horsemen of the 
great cavalry leader, 
and the awful in- 
fantry of Quintin 
Bandera were 
sweeping the Island, 
and La Reforma, 
Calimete, and Mai 
Tiempo were fresh 
in the minds of 
Spanish soldiery. 
The advance guard 
of Gomez was to 
take a certain town : 
accounts differ as 
to the name of the town, and I repeat the facts as I 
heard them. By a mistake of the guide, so the 
story goes, the armed force took the wrong road 
and marched past the town before they knew it. 
They did not go back ; for their orders were " For- 
ward, always forward, to Pinar del Rio." 

But the unconscious impedimenta, scrambling 
along half a mile behind, took the right road. 
Before them lay the town they believed already 
theirs. They saw the chapel spire, the red roofs, 




" A fat stingy Spaniard for host. ' ' 



Gomez' Staff 133 

and " dobe " walls, and visions of little shops, with 
shoes and clothing, and rope for bridles and lariats, 
and sugar and coffee, and perhaps a little fonda, 
with a fat stingy Spaniard for host and a store- 
room with casks of wine and jugs of rum, rose 
like a mirage before them. Full of enthusiasm, 
the impedimenta took the trot, then the gallop, 
and tore into the hamlet with howls of " Viva 
Cuba, Muera Espana — Viva Cuba Libre!" 

In the main street the garrison, two hundred 
strong, was drawn up, ready to surrender to the 
" Liberating Army." Too late the desarmados saw 
the flash of Spanish rifles, and the bluish, red- 
trimmed uniforms ; but the surprise was mutual. 
The Cuban, Hannibal, who commanded the im- 
pedimenta, rose to the occasion. He accepted the 
surrender, collected the rifles, and spared the lives 
of the Spanish regulars. The equilibrium of all 
parties was restored, and another armed regiment 
was added to the muster roll of the Republic. 

Gomez' own cook, a Spaniard born, named Moron, 
was an exception to the rule concerning asistentes, 
for he rode on a fine buckskin mule with the gen- 
eral staff, the pots and pans clinking in his saddle- 
bags. That Moron, occupying a position of trust, 
should be a Spaniard, was not so surprising when 
one considers that in the Cuban ranks are many 
Spaniards who, from sympathy or as deserters, have 
cast their lot with the rebellion. Miro, an able 
leader, is one of these. 

Moron was always in Gomez' sight ; in fact at 
Mai Tiempo he rode beside Gomez in a machete 
charge, and even from his mule macheted a Spanish 



134 



Marching with Gomez 



soldier. It was the same machete, by the way, that 
he used for chopping the general's meat. 

At Moron's elbow rode his scullion, Grillo (sig- 
nificant name for one of his profession !), on a good 







Moron, ranking cook of the Cuban army. 

but a smaller mule, with more of the cooking uten- 
sils in his saddle-bags, — and the two were forever 
quarrelling ; that is, Moron was laying down the 
law and Grillo was talking back ; for Grillo was an 
impudent little negro of eleven or thereabouts, and 



Gomez' Staff 135 



very mischievous, with a spirit of his own. Grillo 
was always getting into trouble. Once, I remember, 
Gomez' field-glass was missing, and they traced it 
to Grillo, who was seen looking through it, back end 
to, at the last camping place, and had left it in the 
grass. Gomez drew his machete and gave Grillo 
some good " planazos " with the flat of it, and the 
scullion Was sent back with two soldiers to get it. 

Gomez had also another asistente, a light mulatto, 
a Dominican, I believe ; but he was less privileged, 
and travelled with the impedimenta. 

At this time Gomez had, as chief of staff, Briga- 
dier-general Zavier Vega, a tried soldier of the last 
war, a Camagueyano, slow of speech, but big hearted 
and brave. Gomez was very fond of him and trusted 
him. 

The general's secretary was Antonio Colete, rank- 
ing as a lieutenant-colonel — a well-educated man 
of thirty, who wrote official letters in a clear, flowing 
hand and possessed a smattering of French and of 
general literature. Colete was, by profession, an 
architect of Havana. 

There were half a dozen others whose names and 
records Gomez has given in his little book, " Mi 
Escolta." Some of them bore old and famous 
names and looked it ; others were of the bluff 
peasant type, sturdy and honest. 

These aides were supposed to be very exemplary 
as well as valiant. Thev were presumably not ad- 
dicted to luxuries any more than their commander 
himself. Gomez, if invited by a planter to take a 
copita of brandy or rum, would sometimes accept, 
saying that he occasionally took a little as he was 



136 Marching with Gomez 

now a very old man ; but as for his aides they never 
touched liquor at all. 

There was certainly no open conviviality; but 
often when we remained over a day in one district, 
or from our circular marches there was likelihood of 
our return, arrangements wer^ made with obliging 
peasants by those who had money, and supplies 
bought through pacificos who had access to the 
towns were brought into camp, as I had seen them 
when with Lacret. 

There were two officers who attracted my atten- 
tion from the first, Pedro Guitierrez and Miguel 
Varona (Miguelito), whom Gomez particularly men- 
tions in his book. 

" Miguelito " was a pet of the old general's. He 
was a son of a brave officer and companion-in-arms 
of Gomez during the last war. Miguelito's ham- 
mock was always swung near that of the commander- 
in-chief, and he sat at his mess. In the first days 
of the invasion, Miguelito came on foot to Gomez 
in Camaguey, begging permission to go with him, 
to carry a rifle as a soldier. Gomez took -the boy 
under his wing, and there he has remained ever 
since, throughout a long campaign and in many hot 
places. He was stout for his age, and they say that 
at both Calimete and Coliseo, Miguelito rode in 
the first ranks, and struck down men with his 
machete. He held the rank of lieutenant, and made 
a very good aide-de-camp. He was, of course, the 
youngest officer in the Cuban army. 

Guitierrez was a youth from Puerto Rico, full of 
the glory of war, and really quite plucky. He was' 
a haphazard little man, always running into gun-fire 




Grillo. — Page 136. 



Gomez' Staff 137 



just for the sake of being there, and often when 
there was no earthly need for it. I have heard 
Gomez reprimand him on that score, yet the " old 
man " did so with rather assumed severity, for not 
every member of the staff was so enthusiastic, even 
on " straight duty." 

Guitierrez wore, when it rained, a beautiful plum- 
colored mackintosh, with a cape and a double row 
of silver-plated buttons, each embossed with the ini- 
tials G. C. It was the mackintosh that Spain issues 
to that select corps of constabulary, the Guardia 
Civil, and Guitierrez had captured it somewhere. 
" When I was a boy, in Puerto Rico," he said, " I 
thought those Civil Guards terrible fellows. I did 
not know how one could manage them ; but now," 
here he tapped his Winchester, — with which I do 
not believe he ever actually hit anything in his life, 
for he shot quick and carelessly, — " now I think 
no more of killing a Civil Guard than I do of spit- 
ting." And he spat on the ground to show how 
little such an act concerned him. 

Guitierrez was a good fellow and good company. 
He had an emotional side that showed itself occa- 
sionally on very wet days, when the weather was 
what the French call triste. 

" I have been with the general since the first of 
the war," he would say, " and I am now one of the 
few left of the original staff. I shall fall some day ; 
I sometimes feel that I shall never live to see it over 
and Cuba free." 









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I Escolta. 



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15 YABPS 



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Retreat of I-mf>edtmei)ta. 



Plan of Gomez' skirmish with a Spanish column on the plains between Mana- 
janabo and Savanas Nueuas, Santa Clara Province, May 12, 1 896. 



Chapter III 
Manajanabo 




ON May 12th, I saw an attack made on a 
Spanish column, fairly in the open, on the 
plains near the ruined fort of Manajanabo. 
Gomez crossed to the western side of 
the Sagua that morning, and breakfasted at noon at 
a small sugar estate, on a hill overlooking a flat, 
fertile valley, where tall poplars, and here and there 
a reach of glistening water, marked the course of 
the river. The railroad from Santa Clara to Sancti 
Espiritu ran at a closing angle with the Sagua ; for 
we saw the smoke and heard the whistle of a south- 
bound train. 

It was a comfortable plantation, where the pro- 
139 



140 



Marching with Gomez 



prietor was his own manager and employed half a 
dozen hands, — the sort of plantation that will be 
starved out of existence, when Cuba is free, if the 
sugar trust once thrusts its grasping arm into the 
country. 

There was a mill worked by a horse, driven blind- 
folded in a circle about the crusher and receiving 
vat, all under a roof, no wider than that of a band 
stand in Central Park, and a 
trough that carried the sap to 
the boilers, where, under a 
shed a few yards away, sugar 
was made and stored. It was 
an ingenio too small to build 
a moral effect on, that paid 
its little contributions to the 
insurgents, and was allowed to 
grind enough " for private 
purposes." There were two 
iron boilers full of steaming 
guarapo when we got there, 
and many bags of rich, brown 
sugar. 
With the sugar, our negroes, especiallv of the 
impedimenta, made havoc, filling saddle-bags, tin 
cans, pockets when they had them, even their hats 
transformed into baskets, which they bore off upside 
down on their heads. After breakfast and rest, we 
took the march down across the savanna by the 
river, with the afternoon sun on our backs. 

Gomez had with him his escolta, eighty well-armed 
and well set-up men with an established reputation 
for gallantry, and two troops of fifty men each, one 




' • They filled even their hats. ' ' 



Manajanabo 



141 



commanded by Major Ramon Guerra, the oldest 
soldier in the Cuban army, the other by an officer 
whose name I think was Legon ; behind came the 
impedimenta, of asistentes and camp-followers, with 
twenty troopers detailed from the escolta for a rear- 
guard. 

It was three o'clock when one of Guerra's men 
of the advance guard rode back and touched his 
hat to Gomez : " A column marching on the 
high-road toward Santa Clara," he said, " with a 




' ' Their heads and their horses' heads visible above the tall grass. ' ' 

guerilla one hundred strong as advance guard, my 
general ! " Gomez reined up, pulled his beard for a 
moment, then he cocked his eye on the country 
ahead, and gave quick orders over his shoulder to 
two aids, who galloped off, one to the head of the 
line, the other to the impedimenta. Then we rode 
on. 

Looking back to where the impedimenta wound 
along, only heads and shoulders and horses' heads 
visible above the tall grass, I saw it strike from the 
trail, followed by the rear-guard, to the rising, hilly 
ground on our right. 

Ahead was a wall of palm forest, where sunlight 



142 Marching with Gomez 

brought out the white trunks against the shade 
within. To our right front, between us and the 
forest, was a palm grove. Toward this grove 
Guerra's troop turned, still at a walk. As we 
approached the forest the Spanish guerrilleros 
showed in full view, drawn up in two white lines, 
facing us. Behind them lay the Santa Clara high- 
road, skirting the forest within short carbine range 
of the grove toward which Guerra was making. 
They waited, uncertain whether we were friends or 
foes, while a bluish-gray bunchy mass formed behind 
them, thickening as a dust-hidden thread of infantry 
wound from the high-road into it. 

Gomez led his sixty men of the escolta diagonally 
from the trail toward the enemy, opening as they 
advanced into a wide, irregular skirmish line, shout- 
ing to one another, repeating the order, " Deploy ! 
open wide ! deploy ! " 

The Spaniards saw our column split, and their 
movements became hurried and ant-like; they 
might still have extended to occupy the palm 
grove before Guerra's men got there, — --but they 
did not. The infantry squirmed itself into a 
square, the last stragglers of the marching line 
closing up at a jog trot. There was a tremor in 
the two guerilla troops, as if " gathering " for the 
order, " Draw sabre ! Forward ! " but they did not 
charge. It was only a swiftly executed " twos left, 
column left," at a trot, that brought them within 
and behind the halted infantry ranks. 

There was a white flutter of a hundred legs as 
the guerrilleros swung from their saddles, and stood 
to horse in the very centre of a solid square, — the 




Major Ramon Giterra. — Page 142. 

[He is upwards of ninety years, and learned to right, he says, in the Ten Years' 
War, under General Ryan, whom lie regards, next to Gomez, as the greatest 
man in hfstory.] 



Manajanabo 143 

most magnificent target conceivable — one that 
would make an American marksman's trigger finger 
quiver up to his elbow. As usual, the Spaniards 
made in every respect the least possible advantage 
of their natural surroundings. 

The men of the escolta were now at a distance 
from the enemy, varying between two hundred and 
two hundred and fifty yards. Our other two troops 
were already scattering into the palm grove, and the 
impedimenta was safe away among the hills. Gomez' 
two trumpeters struck up a merry quickstep, and 
the shooting began on our side. 

The Cubans say that if you are not wounded in 
the first volley, you will not be at all unless Providence 
so expressly desires ; therefore, I waited to see the 
rifles go up with interest. A sparkle of moving steel 
ran along the bluish-gray line, then the line wavered 
in a thin mist of exploding, smokeless powder, and 
a crash came like the swift tearing of a giant strip of 
carpet. Another crash ! and another! Five distinct 
crashes; and the five cartridges that each Spanish 
rifle carried in its magazine were expended. The 
popping of our men, who shot from their saddles, 
seemed slight and puny. ' 

The Spanish volleys now came irregularly, swell- 
ing to a rah ! rah ! rah ! sound, like a confused suc- 
cession of college cheers. The sun caught on the 
waving blades of the officers, who were threatening 
and slapping the soldiers to preserve the alignment. 

Our shots must have told, for the Spanish line 
wavered like cane swayed by the wind ; they were 
shoulder to shoulder, the front rank apparently 
kneeling with the butts of their pieces on the ground. 



144 Marching with Gomez 

Bullets sped by — every near one with a slight hiss- 
ing sound as when an insect darts past you. Some- 
times they would turn blades of grass, or strike in 
the ground with a sharp snap, like the report of an 
air-gun. This was all that told that we were under 
fire of several hundred European regulars. 

A puff of white smoke blew up from some slightly 
higher ground to the rear of the square, and a heavy 
report followed. Then another puff and another re- 
port. Two field-pieces were firing alternately ; but 
we never heard a sing or a sound of the shells, which 
must have travelled back to the little ingenio where 
we had breakfasted. 

Gomez, not expecting an action, rode a cream- 
colored mule, and a mule is a nuisance under gun- 
fire. The commander-in-chief scarcely enjoyed him- 
self; for the mule was rearing in an absurd manner, 
swinging on his hind feet up and down like a hobby- 
horse. 

This rain of bullets, so high, but so thick, began 
to tell after a while. Several horses were shot, sev- 
eral limped from wounds. Guitierrez was near me, 
when his horse stumbled, and lay down with its head 
in the air. A shot had gone through the fleshy part 
of Guitierrez' leg, through the saddle, and through 
the horse. 

Guitierrez said, " Caramba " or a word that be- 
gins with the same letter and means something less 
relevant, whipped off his bridle, and unstrapped 
the saddle. Two crimson spots were painted on his 
gray striped trousers. He continued shooting on 
foot. 

Meanwhile, the men of our other two troops 



Manajanabo 145 

opened a cross fire on the enemy from the palm 
grove, at a range of under two hundred yards. 

For fifteen minutes the fire of the escolta contin- 
ued, while the two buglers spelled each other in pro- 
longing the quickstep. Then our line of skirmishers 
was thinned by the retiring of three men wounded, 
and the carrying ofF of one man killed outright. 
Others, like Guitierrez, whose horses had dropped, 
were walking to the rear, carrying their saddles and 
packs on their heads. Why the Spaniards, whose cav- 
alry far outnumbered Gomez' escolta, and who were 
near enough to sweep through us before we could 
possibly have rallied for a solid front, left all the 
fighting to their infantry, I could not see. 

The signal to retire blew, and we turned back to 
follow the impedimenta. " There was a deep arroyo, 
and we could not charge," observed Gomez, 1 between 
the jumps of his restive mule. 

Our friends in the palm grove kept on firing, 
and the Spaniards remained where they were. As 
we came into long range, bullets fell faster and 
nearer, snapping into the ground, lively as hail. 

When you have once turned your back on an 
enemy, there is an instinct to hasten, and you begin 
to realize that he is shooting at you. We kept a 
dignified walk, but we moved right along, and 
spoke and jested less frequently. Comparing our 
pace to that of the men on foot, and those holding 

1 Gomez knew well that the grass-fed mounts of the rebels, even in the excite- 
ment of a charge, have not actual strength enough to keep the run over a deep ditch 
or up an incline. It is also noteworthy that since the first few months of the war 
the Spanish infantry have become exceedingly cautious not to expose themselves in 
open order, or even in company squares, if their tactics include that formation, to a 
charge of insurgent cavalry. I bass this criticism on their behavior at Manajanabo 
and Saratoga. 



146 



Marching with Gomez 



the wounded on their saddles, and the dead man 
who was slung over a led horse, we, the unharmed, 
seemed in a hurry. There is something sad and 
anticlimax about a retreat, even if it is a part of 
the original programme. 

A strip of meat lay in the path, dropped by the 
impedimenta, whose trail we followed. A staff 
officer dismounted, picked it up, and hid it carefully 
in the long grass. "If the Spaniards were to see 
it," he said, " they would say that we threw away 
all our provisions in our retreat." 

We were out of gun-fire at last, and rejoined the 
impedimenta, which we found waiting on a hillside. 
Then we marched a mile to a tributary of the 
Sagua, where there was good grass for the horses, 
and as soon as the wounded men were sent off to 
the nearest prefectura, we had a supper of beef 
strips, and turned in. 







' ' A mule is a nuisance under gun-fire. ' ' 



Chapter IV 
Our Last Skirmish in Las Villas 

BY dawn, Gomez was on the road back toward 
Manajanabo, with sixty men of the escolta 
ahead, twenty as rear-guard, and the impedi- 
menta tinkling along between. The Spanish 
column, when darkness had put an end to the firing, 
kept on toward Santa Clara, and camped on the 
San Antonio estate, just off" the high-road, and 
quite near where we spent the night. 

It was daylight when we passed the gringos, and, 
as a precaution to guard against their attacking 
us, ten men from our advance guard, led by an aid 
named Tejedor, who on this occasion caught a 
Mauser bullet in the groin, deployed into the brush 
and began shooting into their camp. The troops 
were quick to form, and returned fire in volleys ; 
but the nickel-capped' bullets pierced only leaves 
of the trees, or flattened on the stone-walls that 
bordered the high-road. Meanwhile our main force 
passed out of range. 

There is a great deal of safety in skirmishing with 
an enemy so fond of the defensive as the Spaniards. 
In fact, the glories of recent Spanish military his- 
tory seem to be heroic defences, like Valladolid 
and Saragoza, where retreat was impossible, rather 
than gallant charges and attacks. To-day, with 

147 



148 Marching with Gomez 

something of the same spirit, the Mexicans celebrate 
Jalapa, Churubusco, Chapultepec, and Resaca de la 
Palma, as the Greeks might celebrate Thermopylae. 

Further along, where the road curved over a hill, 
we had a bird's-eye view of the Spanish camp. 
The soldiers were drawn up in a clearing a hundred 
yards square, about the farmhouse which served as 
staff-headquarters. It was an oblong " dobe " 
house, with white walls and a red-tiled roof. On 
its porch a field-glass showed a group of officers, 
with their horses tied to the railing. Orderlies ran 
to and from the outlying buildings, perhaps in use 
as hospitals, and the infantry were still firing steadily 
into the wood, in the direction of the high-road. 
Somewhat back of the house was a well, with a 
covered circular top and a great arm, or sweep, that 
four men continually struggled to push around, 
pumping water into a long trough of cemented 
brick, or " dobe." Around the trough were gath- 
ered the guerrilleros, watering their horses by squads, 
and forming again back under shelter of the trees. 
Framing this scene of activity, a dense Jbliage 
draped the country, sweeping to the base of the 
rocky hill we were climbing. 

As the Spaniards saw us, there was a flurry 
among them. The infantry ceased firing. Two 
field-pieces were dragged from somewhere amongst 
the trees, unlimbered, and turned on us. Six shells 
came our way, — one near enough for us to hear its 
metallic scream. Then we passed over the hillside 
and saw no more of that column. They marched 
into Villa Clara that same day, with a large number 
of wounded, — we had no means of knowing just 



Our Last Skirmish in Las Villas 149 

how many, — and as for the dead, of those who fell 
on the field, or had died of wounds during the night, 
it was said that they threw them into the farmhouse 
and the adjoining sheds before they broke camp, 
and made a bonfire of it all — a method they have 
of concealing their losses. 

We went into camp at noon on a savanna bor- 
dering the Sagua river, where a cow-shed served as 
Gomez' headquarters. Here we were joined by the 
two troops who had carried on the skirmishes from 
the palm grove on the day before. Scattered 
among the palms, they had kept up firing until sun- 
set without losing a single man, and then they had 
crossed the Villa Clara road and camped in the 
thick of the forest beyond. 

Here for the first time since leaving Marto's camp, 
I was able to take a bath. I had been suffering 
from a constant itching, beyond that caused by any 
parasites I had ever known, and I settled down to 
the belief that I was attacked by some horrible skin 
disease. On taking off my flannel shirt, for the first 
time in two weeks, I found it full of a kind of insect 
that I had never seen before. They were much 
larger than bedbugs, though similar in appearance. 
I showed them to a trooper who was washing his 
horse in the river, and he said they were the terrible 
caranjanos that Cubans say were brought from Spain 
by the Spanish soldiers. 

The only way to get rid of them is to boil every 
article of clothing. So, without specifying for what 
purpose, I borrowed a leaky tin pail used for cook- 
ing potatoes, and rode from camp with Alfredo. I 
boiled my wardrobe secretly, and from that day I 



150 Marching with Gomez 

discarded my flannel shirt; for in the Manigua wool 
attracts and encourages vermin. Perhaps for that 
reason, as well as from economy, cotton is supplied 
the troops by the Spanish commissariat, and is exclu- 
sively worn by the Cubans. 

Somehow the rumor of my affliction spread, and 
Moron heard it. Moron was a good friend of mine, 
for every morning before we broke camp he was 
careful to send me, by Alfredo, half a jicara full of hot 
coffee. To be sure, he did so by Gomez' orders ; 
but the cook of the Commander-in-chief is enough of 
an autocrat to forget such things once in a while, or 
to occasionally not have enough to go around, if he 
feels like it. The blight of my caranjanos fell on 
Alfredo, and Moron forbade him to sit by his cook- 
fire. My other orderly, Eusebio, was naturally a 
neat boy, and besides, he looked after our horses, so 
he escaped the ban for that evening, at least. With 
Alfredo and caranjanos I was soon to have another 
experience. 

The general's mess was ampler that day than 
usual, for Moron had time to spend on his cooking. 
There was a rice stew with bits of chopped beef in 
it, plantains, and a dessert of creamy white cheese, 
which we ate in slices dipped in honey poured from 
a bottle into our jicaras ; and there were water-cresses 
that Grillo had found somewhere in the river. Then 
there was more coffee than usual, — a jicara full for 
every member of the general's mess, which, besides 
Gomez himself, consisted of General Vega, his chief 
of staff, Colete, Miguelito, and myself. 

For almost the first time in the field, I had suc- 
ceeded in getting a bottle of brandy and a bundle 



Our Last Skirmish in Las Villas 151 

of cigars through a prefect of the neighborhood. 
There is one luxury in sleeping in a hammock, — 
that is, you can smoke before going to sleep with- 
out setting fire to anything. So a day ended which 
I look back upon as one of the most luxurious since 
I had been in the Manigua. 

On the following day, Gomez had his last skir- 
mish for that season in Las Villas. A large force of 
Spaniards had arrived in the neighborhood, and were 
in camp two miles away. From midnight on there 
was shooting ; for Gomez promptly sent a party of 
local infantry to keep the gringos awake. By day- 
break on the thirteenth, the firing was nearer. The 
infantry were retreating in our direction, and the 
troops had turned out and were following. By six 
o'clock, our camp guards were engaged, and the im- 
pedimenta were already retreating into the mountains 
of the Grupo Cubanacan. The retreat led through 
an up and down, hilly country, thickly wooded, with 
here and there pastures within stone-walls. 

The Spaniards advanced more swiftly than I had 
ever seen them. Instead of keeping to the roads, 
as usual, they swarmed into the woods, blazing away 
through the underbrush, pushing our men back by 
weight of numbers alone, over rugged hills and stone- 
walls, until they were on the very heels of the im- 
pedimenta and still within hand-shaking distance of 
the enemy. Gomez was angry and blamed the guide, 
who had led us by a bad way. Three hours of pur- 
suit had not lessened the ardor of the regulars. 
Few of Gomez' officers had seen anything like it 
since the war began. At last a rocky hill rose be- 



152 Marching with Gomez 

fore us, and an open path wound over it corkscrew 
fashion, in plain view from below. Here there was 
trouble with the impedimenta. They were exposed 
to a fire that drove over our heads and pattered 
among them like hail. 

One of the impedimenta was shot, and fell with 
his horse directly in the narrowest part of the way, 
and it took several minutes to get him out. To 
hurry matters, the impedimenta, as it reached the 
summit, split in three parties, making off, for the 
sake of speed, in different directions over the brow 
of the hill. 

Then the road was clear, and it was the turn of 
the staff, and the rear-guard, Guerra's men, to go up. 

Gomez led, and there was scrambling and swear- 
ing and lashing of horses as the staff and rear-guard 
followed, jostling one another. If a horse fell, a 
man jerked off saddle and bridle as quickly as he 
could and beat the crouching animal, with drawn 
machete, out of the pathway. When a man lay 
down and called for help, volunteers dismounted, 
took him on their shoulders, or on their horses, and 
hurried him along. 

I observed no unnecessary delay, even on the 
part of the reckless Guitierrez, who rode just in front 
of me, digging his heels into his horse's flanks and 
looking straight ahead, and the cavalry drill-master's 
"four feet from head to croup" was forgotten. 

At the top, Gomez paused and gave old Ramon 
Guerra orders not to let the Spaniards up, even if 
he had to hold them back with the machetes. 
When the last of the rear-guard had joined us, the 
trail was open, — a sunny, glistening path, encum- 



Our Last Skirmish in Las Villas 



*S3 



bered by four dead horses. One horse that had fallen, 
scrambled to his feet, goaded by flying pebbles and 
ricochet bullets, and came limping, with drooping 
head, up the trail after us. 

The Spaniards did not try that pass, and our re- 
treat became more dignified. Seven troopers were 
reported severely wounded, and three dead men 
were being carried, slung on led horses. 

The insurgents never desert their wounded. It is 
part of their religion to stay with them : I have never 





jj#tt#fc&^ 




Carrying the wounded. 

seen or heard, on good evidence, of an exception to this 
rule. As Gomez says, "The wounded are sacred." 
The impedimenta were signalled to halt, and from 
it stout negroes were detailed to carry the helpless. 
Hammocks were borrowed from those who had 
them to lend, and the wounded were borne in them, 
slung on poles on the shoulders of their comrades. 
Two men carried a pole for a hundred yards or so, 
and rested it on crotched sticks that they drove 
upright in the ground at each halt, while they 
caught their wind and mopped their sweaty brows. 



! 54 



Marching with Gomez 



A third man shouldered those crotched sticks and 
changed places with the first pole-bearer who gave out. 
Nine more were wounded, but able to take care 
of themselves ; among them, General Vega, Gomez' 
chief of staff, received a ricochet ball in the ankle 
that took in a bit of his leather legging with it, and 
bothered him for many a week afterwards. 




Burying the dead. 

We moved slowly, supposing the Spaniards far 
behind. The impedimenta had disappeared among 
the hills, and the staff carelessly jogged along with 
the last files of the rear-guard. On a bluff over- 
looking the country was a cottage, and from its 
door a middle-aged woman with three small children 
gazed at us, trembling, for they had heard the 
approaching roar of musketry. We dismounted 



Our Last Skirmish in Las Villas 155 

to reconnoitre with field-glasses. Fully one thou- 
sand yards back, through an open spot on an oppo- 
site hillside, we could see Spanish infantry straggling 
in another direction, and an officer on a white horse 
was looking back at us through his field-glass. 

It was already eleven o'clock, and we stood in a 
bunch, passing the glass from one to another. 
Gomez was prominent in the foreground. Sud- 
denly from the leafy vale below came the barking 
of Mausers. A detachment of Spaniards had come 
upon us by another trail, and were shooting at short 
range, — not two hundred yards. Colete was 
wounded in the groin, as Tejedor had been on the 
day before. The soldiers had begun firing as they 
came up. Had they waited until enough were to- 
gether to send a good round volley, they might have 
got more of us, even our commander-in-chief; but 
we did not wait for volleys. We lost no time in 
mounting and hurrying after the rear-guard, leav- 
ing the mother and children screaming, " Ay, Dios 
mio!" in each other's arms; for the gringos were 
coming, and they knew not which way to run. 
Colete's wound did not prevent his riding with 
us without assistance. Those were the last shots 
that day. 

A mile further on we halted. Deep in the 
woods, some distance from the road, a temporary 
camp was made for the wounded, and the dead were 
buried. Graves were dug with poles made from 
saplings sharpened to a point with machetes. Some 
thrust the poles into the ground to turn it up and 
soften it, and others scooped out the loosened earth 
with their hands. The equipments of the dead 



i 5 6 



Marching with Gomez 



were removed before burial, and portioned among 
those who needed them most. A man tried on the 
hat, leggings, and shoes of his late comrade as he 
lay on the ground, and kept them if a fit, or if not, 
passed them to his neighbor ; for in the field it is 
so difficult to get clothing of any kind, that the 
Mambis cannot afford to lose through sentiment. 
From our point of view, the day was a victory ; 




Dressing General Vega s wound. 

because two columns, acting in combination, had 
chased us as a brace of hounds chases a hare, and 
failed to bag us all. Yet our loss — twenty 
wounded and three killed outright, nearly all on the 
open hillside where the impedimenta came under fire 
— was far greater than usual in such skirmishes. 

My man, Eusebio, was among the missing, and I 
never saw him afterwards. He carried my only 
bottle of ink, too, which was no small loss. Alfredo 
from that day did double work. 



Our Last Skirmish in Las Villas 157 

As for Alfredo, he answered muster cheerfully 
with the impedimenta ; but when I asked him for 
the remainder of the brandy I had entrusted to his 
care, he told me that on that terrible path a bullet 
had shattered the bottle in his very hand, and in 
default of evidence to the contrary, I believed him. 

Early that afternoon, we were resting in a peace- 
ful camp, on a branch of the Sagua, near the pastures 
of Palo Prieto, and the toil of the morning, with its 
loss of life and blood, was already forgotten. 

News that Gomez was near spread through the 
immediate country. Several peasants who had 
never seen the commander-in-chief visited the 
camp. One elderly pacifico had the temerity to 
visit headquarters with his whole family, all faithful 
Cubans. This, in spite of the fact that it was a 
time of alarm and surprises, and they would all have 
suffered if they had been caught going to or away 
from the camp. There was a mother and her 
daughter in gowns of brilliant calico only brought 
out on feast days. Their hair was dressed with 
great formality, and they were powdered to the ears, 
as Cuban women are on state occasions. The 
mother wore a Spanish mantilla and carried a huge 
sky-blue sun umbrella. 

They brought gifts of eggs and cheese, and a fine 
live pullet, that Moron might carry in his pannier, 
and roast at the general's pleasure. There was a 
little boy in a freshly washed linen suit, and a little 
girl with close-cropped hair, and as a great honor 
they were presented to the general, who shook 
hands with them genially. 

The pacifico was a well-fed, gray-whiskered old 



i 5 8 



Marching with Gomez 



man, who bared his head to Gomez with great 
respect. He had an elder son, he said, who had 
followed the invasion, and was perhaps with Maceo. 
He had not heard from him these many months. 

Such visits were common as we marched through 
Las Villas, when there were no soldiers about. 
They were formal and did not last long. Gomez 
was always gracious when visits were made with 
proper show of formality, and would ask these peas- 
ants questions about their families, and what they had 
sacrificed for the fatherland, which was sometimes 
embarrassing, so that often they were abashed, and 
bowed themselves off even more respectfully than 
they had come. 




" They brought gifts of eggs and cheese, and a fine live pullet." 



Chapter V 
Into Camaguey 

WITH the skirmishes about Manajanabo 
ended Gomez' series of illusive marches 
between Villa Clara and Sancti Espiritu, 
— marches that kept the Spaniards in pur- 
suit, staggering under a pitiless sun or chilled by the 
first rains of the wet season, through a country where 
hunger drove the men to devour unripe fruit, and 
thirst drove the officers to excess in gin and brandy, 
each day swelling the list of sick and wounded. For 
the insurgents' losses were slight ; men simply grew 
more gaunt and ragged, while horses became sore- 
backed and raw-boned. Then General Bruno Zayas, 
who for two weeks past, with perhaps five hundred 
men, had been campaigning in conjunction with 
Gomez, pushed through the middle trocha toward 
Matanzas, and Gomez struck eastward through the 
hills of the Matahambre range toward the wooded 
lands of Camaguey. 

There were good, broad roads and comfortable 
farms and pastures with roaming cattle and wild 
horses. The pacificos were sleek and well-to-do, and 
often had rich gardens by the very high-road, — a 
contrast to the ashes, desolation, and terror of western 
Las Villas and Matanzas. 

'59 



i6o 



Marching with Gomez 



Once Gomez paused as he saw a farmer plough- 
ing by the roadside. " Why do you work?" he cried; 
" don't you know that you are working for Spain, 
who will seize your crops ? Don't you know that 
you make the land richer for Spain, and that for your 
work she will be less ready to abandon it ? To sup- 
port your family ? It would be better if you fed 
them on roots in the forest or left them to starve, 




4*W 

The farmer by the roadside 



\f$mkf uu 



as my men have left their wives and children and par- 
ents to starve for the sake of the fatherland. You 
work when you should destroy. When the war is 
over there will be need and time for ploughing. 
Until then only the machete should be lifted." 

Passing a cottage, a pretty young woman with a 
babe in her arms, and a fair-looking man carrying 
a rifle, showed themselves at the door. " Bring 
that man to me," commanded Gomez, a little the- 
atrically. "Here, one of you staff officers, examine 



Into Camaguey 161 

his cedula. So you are of the prefectura ? " The 
man hung his head. "Ah, afraid to answer, — so 
neat, too, so clean, so well dressed ; what ! this 
woman has no husband and is not your wife ? Is 
this the way you enjoy yourself while we are wear- 
ing out our skins. Colonel Bosa ! where is Colonel 
Bosa ? Here, disarm this fellow and put him 
among the asistentes." 

Then, turning to the woman, Gomez continued 
less roughly, " It is the fault of you, such women 
as you, willing to amuse yourselves when the coun- 
try is in danger ; making majaces of weak men 
when the fatherland lacks defenders." 

Eastward of the Las Villas line the country be- 
came more sparsely settled. We were entering the 
timber land of tall mahogany trees, draped with 
creeping vines and parasite plants, and giant ceiba 1 
trees, that in the last war were often hollowed into 
canoes and bore messengers with despatches to the 
neutral shores of Jamaica and Santo Domingo. On 
peasant farms there were chopping-blocks of mahog- 
any in the kitchens ; and horse-troughs, some half a 
century old, were made of it. Everywhere fruits 
were beginning to ripen, — guavas and mangoes, 
mamees and rose apples.- Sometimes as we crossed 

1 The ceiba lifts a massive trunk for fifty feet into the air, and then branches into 
a dense canopy of foliage. It towers above the surrounding vegetation, almost equal- 
ling in height the roval palm. Native negroes believe that the ceiba is a magic tree, 
haunted nightly by spirits — a superstition that is shared by the negroes of Santo Do- 
mingo, Jamaica, and Nassau. 

2 Lemons grew plentifully in every garden and by the roadside. Besides being 
useful for the "mess" as seasoning, tlic-v were useful in operations of veterinary sur- 
gery 1 had now every day to perform. My horse, owing to the awkward construc- 
tion of my criollo saddle, suffered from a severe saddle-boil, and I could allow him no 
rest. Every afternoon, on making camp, Alfredo held his head, while with half a 
lemon, I cleansed away the proud flesh from the wound — for we were now in a country 



l62 



Marching with Gomez 



a savanna there were traces of insurgent camps ; 
— charred parillas, bones of cattle, and low, grass- 
built wickyups by the roadside, wherein sentries of 

travelling forces had 



VA U\0\C 




roots invading the entire soil. 



spent a night. Wild 
pigs abounded in the 
forest, and sometimes 
ran out from the un- 
derbrush in squealing 
broods, dodging our 
horses' hoofs. Some- 
times we made right or 
left low cuts at them 
with the machete ; but 
to capture one it was 
best to dismount and 
give chase on foot. It 
was a country where 
the prefects could cul- 
tivate crops undis- 
turbed, plantains in 
abundance and sweet- 
potatoes, — which, 
once planted, grew in 
such profusion that on 
the farms one had 
to continually plough 
about the patch to 
prevent the tuberous 



where it was safe enough to unsaddle, though the rank-and-file, as in Matanzas, 
were not permitted to do so. Then I squeezed the juice of a fresh lemon into the 
wound and scattered wood ashes over it as a protection from flies. This was heroic 
treatment, but the best I could offer under the circumstances. 



Into Camaguey i6j 

Our camps were often built by rivers, which gave 
me a chance to bathe. One morning I had the 
horror of again finding two caranjanos in my shirt. 
Back in Matanzas I had bought a ragged water- 
proof coat from a pacifico, that proved useless to 
turn rain, but served as a wrap at night. Alfredo 
carried this coat strapped to his saddle by day, so I 
remembered Moron's suspicion, and guessed that 
the caranjanos came from my asistente. 

When we halted at noon I borrowed a tin pail, 
and rode, followed by my unsuspecting servant, to 
the river. Alfredo built a fire, and I boiled my 
clothing as before and bathed. When I was dressed, 
I ordered Alfredo to strip and boil his garments, 
too. This was an indignity, and he demurred. He 
pleaded that his clothing scarcely hung together as 
it was, and that a washing, let alone a boiling, 
would destroy it. And was he to go naked ? Be- 
cause he- was black was no reason for his having 
caranjanos. There were others, white men, who, if 
the truth were known, had caranjanos, too. I told 
him to go to the impedimenta, and I would ask 
General Gomez for another asistente. Then he 
weakened, and I made him swim and duck his head 
three times, while his only shirt and pantaloons 
boiled and bubbled on the bank. 

We crossed the Jucaro- Moron trocha without a 
shot, north of Moron. Four skirmish lines were 
thrown across the railroad track, — two covering the 
approach from the north, two from the south. It 
was a clay flat, thicklv grown with scrub trees. 
Along the line in either direction a white speck of a 
fort was visible. No patrols came out, and the 



164 



Marching with Gomez 



scouts boasted that it was because they 
dared not venture against so large a 
force. There was something in this, for 
two Americans, who crossed with a 
guide a short time afterward, brought 
tales of a hair-breadth escape from a 
patrol of cavalry who followed them 
some distance from the line. 

The security of the country en- 
couraged majaces, and Gomez de- 
spatched parties in all di- 
rections to " round them 
up." Every evening a 
silent, abashed line was 
drawn up before head- 
quarters, while officers, 
soldiers, and asistentes 
crowded in anticipation of 
the lecture to come. 
'Ah-h-h, ma-ja-ces, Finally Gomez would 
neat, well-fed ma- come out from under 
ja-ces ! ... r . , 

his piece or canvas with 
a towel in one hand that served for a 
handkerchief, and look them through 
from under his bushy gray eye- 
brows, with his hawk's eye. 

"Ah-h-h, ma-ja-ces, neat, well- 
fed ma-ja-ces, living in hous-es, 
on fresh pork and chicken and 
milk, the food of the women and 
children, swindling; the republic, 

l.j j c ^1 ra 1 j 3 " Do you wear the weap- 

what do you do tor the fatherland ? / s of the republic for 
" Do you wear the weapons of ornaments?" 





Into Camaguey 



165 



i c= ~^ the republic for ornaments, and ride her 
^fe?^ horses for pleasure ? 

" You, you say your father was dying, 

and you left your force to be with 

him in December, and it is now 

May and he is still dying ? And 

you over there, you with the 

face of a guerrillero, you say 

you were wounded. Look at 

my men. Every 

one of them is 

wounded. I am 

wounded. I will 

have the surgeon 

examine us and see 

which is the sicker 

man, you or I. 

" You deceive the 
republic, but you do 
not deceive me. I will 
make vou serve your 

geon examine us • c \ 

and see which is the country, if only as ex- 

sicker man, you or amples for others. I 
will keep my eye on 
every single one of you. 

" Officer of the day, take these men 
to the impedimenta, make them walk 
with the infantry." 

So, each day the active forces were 
swelled with men who had long waited 
for arms, and the impedimenta filled - 1 W M keep my 
with those on whom the hardships of e X e °" ever y 
war had hitherto fallen lightly. your' °' 




" / will have the sur- 




i66 



Marching with Gomez 



In camp no breach of discipline was too slight to 
escape correction from the commander-in-chief; and 
when at rare intervals a grave offence was committed 
a formal court-martial was called and its findings 
were read aloud to the forces assembled. One court 
found a stripling of barely eighteen years old, guilty 




A bit of camp discipline. 

of sleeping on his post at sentry duty, a crime pun- 
ishable with death. But Gomez, who rarely condones 
a fault, pardoned the culprit on account of extreme 
youth, after giving him a fright and a public lecture 
on the seriousness of his offence, and sent him to 
the impedimenta " until he should grow up." 

Couriers soon began to arrive from the Civil Gov- 
ernment, which still lingered about Najaza. With 
them came officers newly landed by the expeditions 



Into Camaguey 167 

of Calixto Garcia, and Ruz. The last came with 
commissions issued by the ambitious government : 
they were captains without companies, first lieuten- 
ants without commands ; and bearing the stars of 
those grades, they reported to Gomez. These com- 
missions were directly in violation of the printed 
Articles of War, and Gomez tore them up, detail- 
ing their bearers, as untried and unpractised in war 
as militia recruits, to the nearest forces as second 
lieutenants and alferez. 

With the Garcia expeditionaries, came Dr. Eusebio 
Hernandez, a man of position, and well known to 
the leaders of the revolution as an active partisan. 
Dr. Hernandez represented the best class of Cuban. 
Energetic, of high intelligence, and good family, he 
had studied his profession in Paris and Madrid, and 
removed, in 1894, to Havana, where in one year 
he achieved a brilliant reputation as a specialist in 
women's diseases. Dr. Hernandez had already been 
offered the position of Cuban commissioner to the 
South American republics ; but there were Cubans 
enough working abroad, he said. He believed in 
the utmost independence in civil and military juris- 
diction. He saw in Gomez the Washington of the 
revolution, and in the government of Cisneros a 
counterpart of our Continental Congress of 1776. 
He therefore preferred to report directly to Gomez 
for orders and counsel. 

I mention Dr. Hernandez especially, because I 
came to look on him as perhaps the ablest civilian 
enrolled in the Cuban cause. 

From the day of his arrival, Dr. Hernandez came 
to Gomez' mess with Colete, Miguelito, and myself. 



Into Camaguey 169 

He replaced General Vega, who was temporarily 
absent. I had an extra spoon in my pack: Her- 
nandez had none, so I was able to add to his equip- 
ment, and one day I saw that Gomez no longer wore 
his chased silver spurs, but a common pair of iron 
ones. At supper I saw the silver spurs on Dr. 
Hernandez' heels, and I knew from this token of 
the general's esteem, that he was now, as Gomez 
would say, " one of the family." 

The mess had become luxurious. We were in a 
country famed for honey. On every farm, deserted 
or otherwise, there were hives by scores, in hollow 
palm logs; and when there was time on the march, 
the men would try to smoke them and scrape out 
the rich comb with their machetes. The asistentes 
vied with each other in capturing bits of comb for 
their masters, and the air was often filled with angry 
bees. Sometimes bottles of perfectly white and very 
fragrant honey, made from certain white flowers that 
grew only on certain hillsides, — honey such as I had 
never before seen, — were sent to Gomez as gifts of 
state. It was the land of the celebrated white Cama- 
guey cheese, that is eaten as dessert, dipped in a 
jicara of honey, or with' sugar — if there is sugar. Al- 
though our column was swelled to nearly six hundred 
men by the addition of one hundred infantry (com- 
manded by the veteran, Major Jose Cruz, of Puerto 
Rico), 1 provisions were still plentiful ; for these forest 
districts had not been exhausted by travelling armies. 

The appearance of the company of infantry that 
now marched as our rear-guard was unique and pa- 
thetic. Somebody called them the " hundred heroes," 

1 He fell at Saratoga, June 13, 1896. 



170 Marching with Gomez 

and they certainly bore out the Frenchman's saying 
that the infantry proves its valor less in fighting 
than in walking so much. Ragged to the skin, 
travel-worn to the bone, of all colors and sizes, with 
their Remington or Mauser " Long Toms " across 
their shoulders, — any way at all, — they filed along 
like bits of moving earth on the landscape. In the 
forest trails that our horses' hoofs had cut into mud 
gullies, they slipped along, leaping from one side to 
the other in search of firmer footing, or struggling 
knee-deep through pools and rivulets. They car- 
ried cooking-utensils queer and various ; even old 
watering-pots taken from deserted gardens. They 
were hard up for everything, — shoes, hats, equip- 
ments of every sort. Fortunately for them, they were 
soon to be refitted ; for near Najaza, some of the 
first cartloads of supplies from the government work- 
shops were portioned among them. 

An incident of the march indicated another vari- 
ance between our general and the Civil Govern- 
ment, with a possible stretch of prerogative by the 
latter. 

It was at noon one day, that a lanky old fellow 
with the face of a vulture was arrested and brought 
before Gomez. He had a servant and three stout 
mules grunting under a weight of merchandise, rich 
as the pack of a peddler in the Arabian Nights. 

He had a formal permit from the Civil Govern- 
ment to sell these goods, — bought in the towns, and 
carried out by bribery of Spanish officials, — to peas- 
ants of the neighborhood. This was in direct vio- 
lation of Gomez' proclamation, forbidding trade of 



Into Camaguey 171 

any kind between the town and the peasants. The 
old speculator's goods were scattered on the ground 
in heaps. He had several hundred cigars, a thou- 
sand packages of cigarettes, bundles of shoes for 
women and children, rolls of calico and linen stuffs, 
a number of trinkets and knick-knacks, four demi- 
johns of rum and brandy, some dozen pounds of 
hard bread, and two bags of coffee. This, when he 
found himself in trouble, he swore was all for his 
personal use. 

Gomez tore up the Government permit and par- 
celled the bread, and coffee, and tobacco among the 
soldiers, excepting the staff and escolta. The shoes, 
calico, and knick-knacks were given to some peasant 
women of the neighborhood to keep, — or divide 
among their friends, — and the rum and brandy 
was poured out on the ground, where it settled into 
the dry soil, leaving a rich aroma. Then the old fel- 
low was sent on his way with a warning, and we 
took the march ; our happy, ragged soldiery puffing 
clouds of pale smoke into the air from their newly 
acquired cigarettes and cigars. 

By this time my equipment was in a sad condition. 
I had no rubber coat that would turn a rain, — I 
had no shelter tent, — I was nearly barefoot, with 
not a sound garment about me ; for though my belt 
was heavy with gold, I could buy nothing. Gomez 
had already remarked, with what I thought at the 
time unnecessary frankness, that it was hard to tell 
which was the more ragged — my asistente or I ; so 
I determined to delay in some district until I could 
refit and join the commander-in-chief later. Gomez, 



S rD j. 



Js^ e-cvtlvlti-ef pit- /Hid,, ^4, ^^z^^durtJ-pT, s^a&T-^om^ 



- ' / / • 

s<^mlensixsCAs*-yV. /yy^eZ&Sl&Le' yf^Co /Co yn-e^&ti cxstylv yftasu*, 

yCL*A*S — (?_£• ^^a-i^u^C*- /A^^A^^/ yt* c^^iy^if-Oa^^y^e-^lyCZ^ srfL-0lSt/ 

Gomez 1 letter of introduction to Carrillo. 

Translation. — Headquarters of the Liberating Army, "Pozo Azul," 
21 May, 1896. To Major General Francisco Carrillo. Remedios. General: 
The bearer of this is Mr. Grover Flint, correspondent of the American newspaper, 
"The Journal," and in that capacity is at present a member of my staff. During 
my absence in the Villarenas districts, Mr. Flint will remain with you. I trust it is 
unnecessary for me to recommend him to your highest consideration. You will 
afford him every assistance in equipping himself completely and fittingly, that he may 
join me on my return, and place at his disposition every means of sending his de- 
spatches abroad. Wishing you health and glory, your General, M. Gomez. 



Into Camaguey 



i/3 



therefore, gave me a letter of introduction to Gen- 
eral Carrillo, who was permanently stationed near 
Remedios ; but at the last moment I decided to 
remain with the " old man " and rough it. 

I give a reproduction of the letter to Carrillo. 
It was written by the secretary, but signed by 
Gomez. It is a fair sample of correspondence 
from headquarters. 




Gomez' staff barber at work. 



Chapter VI 



Gomez' Moral Campaign in Camaguey 

RAIN fell intermittently day and night dur- 
ing the last week in May, and the forest 
trails became sloughs, wherein horses 
splashed to their knees, covering the backs 
of riders ahead with black mud. The rivers were 
swollen, and in the shallowest fords, water rippled 

above the saddle- 
girths, and your 
mount fought 
for a footing. 
Marches were 
therefore short, 
and made -in the 
mornings. Of 
afternoons, Go- 
mez had offend- 
ers from all parts 
brought before 
him, and the 
journey was like riding the circuit with a British 
magistrate of the last century. Evil-doers were run 
to ground and majaces were punished. In Cama- 
guey many officers had become demoralized. They 
were not hard pressed enough to fight in self- 

174 




' ' Horses splashed to their knees. 



Gomez' Moral Campaign in Camaguey 175 



defence, and they grew fond of ease in camp and 
cottage. Samples of discipline like the following 
were common. 

Scene. — A bit of worn canvas stretched on poles 
between two palms. Beneath it Gomez in a ham- 
mock, with Colete sitting in the 
grass, writing, at his side. Bosa, 
Miguelito, and half a dozen alert 
ayudantes in background. Soldiers 
and asistentes in groups to right 
and left. 

Enter, in a cloudburst of geni 
and clean linen, fat, elderly 
with white moustache and red 
He gives his horse to an asiste 
He wears a shiny pistol-belt 
crossbelt with the stars of 
major, top boots, and silver 
mounted machete. 

The major. — "Ah, citi- 
zens, gentlemen, my respects to 
all. My respects to the co 
mander-in-chief. I report at my 
general's order. I trust my gen- 
eral is well." (Removes his hat 
and bows before headquarters.) 

Gomez (testily). — " Lift up the 
tent. Let me see the man. I can't see the fellow." 
(Arranges his spectacles and peers from beneath 
canvas.) 

"Ah! indeed! A com-an-dan-te. How many 
men have you ? " 

The major. — " About fifty, my general." 




' ' / trust my general is 

well. ' ' 



176 Marching with Gomez 

Gomez (raising his voice). — "Answer my ques- 
tion directly ; how many men have you ? " 

The major (embarrassed). — "Just fifty-five, my 
general, and forty rifles." 

Gomez. — " Are your men well, in good health ? 
Haye they ammunition ? " 

The major. — " Excellent, my general, with some 
forty rounds per man." 

Gomez. — " How near does your family live ? " 

The major (in mild astonishment). — "Two 
leagues, my general." 

Gomez. — "Go to them to-day. Prepare your 
equipment, turn over your men and your arms to 
Colonel Bosa at once. To-morrow I will send you 
to Pinar del Rio, to Maceo, where there is fighting, 
where you will have to fight." 

The major. — " My general." 

Gomez. — " Monday you allowed the Spanish 
convoy to pass through your district without attack- 
ing it. You have men, yon have arms and ammu- 
nition, you are strong; how is this ? " 

The major. — "But, my general, I did not know 
it was coming." 

Gomez. — "But you should know; it is your 
business to know. I knew. Every one knew. 
The asistentes knew. It is easy enough to go one 
way and let the Spaniards go another." (Rising and 
addressing his officers.) " Here, who wants an asis- 
tente? Here is a good strong man for an asistente, 
— but no, you must fight ; you shall be a private 
soldier. Tear off those stars which you disgrace ; 
you are a common soldier." 

The major. — " But, my general, remember my 



Gomez' Moral Campaign in Camaguey 177 

services in the last war. I fought in the Ten Years' 
War." 

Gomez. — " The more shame you. This is as if 
I said I had money but I spent it; I had health but 
lost it. Do you think the war is already over? It 
is not when a man comes here saying, 'I am of 
ancient family, or I am a college professor, or I am 
a millionaire,' that he is respected ; but only when 
he can say, c I fight.' White or black or yellow, ' I 
fight ' is a man's glory here. We respect men for 
service alone, and your service does not entitle you 
to respect. Oh, I have heard of you many times 
before. It is my duty as commander-in-chief to 
make you fight as a common soldier. Here, Colo- 
nel Bosa, take this private soldier away." 1 

And before the column was half way through 
Camaguey a major and three captains were privates 
of the escolta. 

At Pozo Azul, a prefect, a tall, sharp-looking 
fellow, was tried on five indictments, for misappro- 
priating government property and levying small 
sums of money, illegally, on farmers of the neighbor- 
hood. He was sentenced to death ; and as evening 
fell, the troops were drawn up, dismounted, on three 
sides of a quadrangle. Then an aide of Gomez 
trotted to the centre of the square and read the 
indictments and the finding of the court-martial. 
Amidst silence, the prefect, his arms tied behind 
him, was marched across the quadrangle to the open 
side, followed by four ragged sharpshooters of the 
infantry and a corporal. His eyes were bandaged, 
and he was placed standing with his back to us all, 

1 After Gomez' scolding, the major was reduced by court-martial in due form. 

N 



178 Marching with Gomez 

six paces in front of the firing squad. There was a 
pause. No one moved but the corporal, who turned 
toward the aide as the four marksmen levelled their 
rifles. Then the last rays of the sun flashed on the 
lifted machete of the aide, and the corporal gave the 
order " Fuego " in a whisper heard only by the four 
and those nearest them. 

The prefect's knees swaved under him, and 
he fell writhing to one side, on his left shoulder, 
with his face buried in the grass. The four bullets 
had passed through his head. Then the trumpeters 
blew "Attention ! " and " Forward, March ! " and the 
troops swung off within a pace of where the corpse 
lay ; many straining over their shoulders to catch a 
glimpse of the features, others passing nonchalantly 
as if it were an everyday occurrence. 

Two days later a burly negro corporal, of vast 
breadth of shoulder and a gorilla-like cast of features, 
was found guilty of gross insubordination. He had 
twice threatened an officer with his carbine. He 
was shot at evening also. 

He died as coolly as any man I have ever seen. 
With an air of disgust he waved off those who 
wished to bandage his eyes, and leaning easily on 
a snake fence, in a sleeveless cotton shirt, with his 
powerful black arms outstretched along the upper 
bar, he looked into the barrels of the firing squad. 

" Fire at my breast," he said ; and when we marched 
by, as was customary, he had fallen easily, his head 
resting against the lowest bar of the snake fence, 
and his eyes open and staring up to the sky, with 
no other expression than annoyance fixed on his 
hard features. 



Gomez' Moral Campaign in Camaguey 179 



These rigid enforcements of discipline were re- 
ported through the Island eastward and westward 
by travelling commissions. They made Cubans 
think ; and laws drawn up by the itinerant govern- 
ment and printed somewhere about Najaza became 
something more than pretty 
compositions under pretty coats- 
of-arms. Cubans felt more than 
ever that the republic existed in 
earnest, and their respect for 
themselves and their leaders in- 
creased. 

It was on the afternoon of June 
2d that scouts brought in Captain 
Manoel Gonzales, a dandified lit- 
tle man, with neatly trimmed black 
whiskers, a gay silk kerchief, and 
a fine jipi-japa hat. His high 
leather leggings, machete scab- 
bard, and belt, his saddle and 
bridle, and saddle clothes, were all 
beautiful examples of Creole lux- 
ury. In his saddle-bags' were cer- 
tain papers, a pack of playing-cards, 
a complete change of clothing, and 
underclothing, a pocket mirror and 
comb, a bottle of scents, and several white hand- 
kerchiefs, fifteen good cigars, and twenty packages 
of cigarettes. He carried a nickel-plated Winches- 
ter rifle and a Colt's revolver. All these were piled 
on the clay floor of a cattle shed that served as 
headquarters, and Gonzales, at Gomez' orders, was 




Gonzales' beautiful 

machete. 



Gomez' Moral Campaign in Camaguey 1 8 1 



put in the stocks beside an offender of less im- 
portance. 

When a suspicious character is under arrest in the 
Manigua, one of his ankles is thrust between two 
stakes driven into the ground. Notches are hacked 
to fetter his limb more firmly, and the stakes are 
tied together above. There, with a sentry standing 
over him, he is left, safely secured, to ruminate on 
his misdeeds. 

Everybody knew that Gonzales had been a 
brigand before the war. Then he had a pack of 
cards, and soldiers of the republic are forbidden to 
play at cards or have them in their possession. 
His cedula showed that he had been absent from 
any organized force since February, and in his belt 
were found one hundred gold centenes 1 and nearly 
one hundred dollars in silver. A court-martial was 
called, and things looked black for Gonzales. It 
meant either reduction to the ranks, or death. 

The monev was sealed in a bag, to be sent to the 
Minister of Finance, and in the distribution of his 
outfit,- which in any case was too good for a " buck " 
soldier, I came out with his belt, its lining still 
marked with the fat coins, his machete (a stout 
Collins cut-and-thrust blade, Paraguay model, made 
in Connecticut), and four of the good cigars. 

Besides the pack of cards, and the cedula, which 
proved him a sort of deserter, there was only circum- 
stantial evidence that Gonzales had resumed his 
profession of brigandage. He was not an intelligent 
man. He talked too much for his own good 
and the court-martial was determined. They sat 

1 A centcn is equivalent to something over four dollars, American money. 



1 82 Marching with Gomez 

on him from seven until midnight. His counsel, 
a young Havana lawyer, defended him manfully. 

I had slung my hammock near the hule, under 
which the court was held. Lying in it, I listened 
to the defence, and dozed at intervals. Gonzales 
had been absent, he said, from the presidency on an 
important commission ; it was to buy paper and 
ink. This had taken him from February until 
June ; but they were difficult things to purchase. 
He carried the playing-cards merely to amuse 
women and children at the houses where he was 
entertained ; he was unaware of the strict signifi- 
cance of the order concerning cards, etc. As for 
the money, it had been lent him from time to 
time in small sums, say two and three dollars, by 
admiring friends. His counsel's attitude was, " For 
Heaven's sake, don't bully my man, but prove 
something if you can." 

I was already asleep when a change from noisy 
discussion to stillness, as the trial reached a climax, 
awoke me. I heard the faint but distinct voice of 
Gonzales, " In fact, gentlemen, / have led the life 
of a bandit." Then there was a pause, and the light 
flickered, as a damp wind rustled through the palm 
tops, and I fell asleep. 

The merry notes of the " Diana " sounded to the 
lifting of a curtain of mist at daybreak on the 3d. 
The troopers, with saddles packed, were mounting 
when the sun was high, and aides trotted off" with 
orders to the encampments of the different forces. 
The assembly followed " boots and saddles," and 
the escolta moved to a sloping savanna, turned 





p A 









- }.: : > 



T: £ 



I 



rf^i 



i>rf 



j..i)l 



p-rpr^ ^ 



j. p§ I I -^ ^r-i J v 1/ 



Reveille" on a rainy morning. — Hage 182. 



Gomez' Moral Campaign in Camaguey 183 

" twos left," and halted. Then came Guerra's and 
Calungas' and Sanchez Agramontes' expedition- 
aries, and finally the neutral tinted company of 
infantry, half seen in the tall grass, filled a side of 
the quadrangle. The soldiers halted, dressed and 
waited. There was a gap left on the southern side, 
where a gnarled guasima tree, with a trunk as big 
as a barrel, stood alone by itself. 

Gomez rode up followed by Dr. Hernandez, 
and halted in front of the escolta. The rest of the 
staff fell in line behind him. On the lower end of 
the square stood Gonzales, his arms tied above the 
elbow, behind him a corporal and four rifles from 
the infantry. 

All were waiting, when Gomez trotted to the 
centre and pulled up short. He turned his big 
white stallion slowly about on his hind quarters by 
the weight of the bridle rein and an easy touch of the 
spur, and drew his little curved Santo Domingo 
machete. Then with his white beard in the air, his 
clear voice came in quick, sharp sentences. 

"Soldiers, before you a man, Manoel Gonzales, 
is brought, tried and condemned by court-martial, 
for breaking the laws of our commonwealth. He 
was guilty, and having held a grade in our army, 
he was a dishonor to all of you who offer your lives 
and labors for the fatherland. I have sentenced 
him to be shot. By the execution of such as he, we 
uphold our honor, and by the death of every rascal, 
we secure peace to our nation when she is free. 
Long live free Cuba ! " 

Three vivas rose, and Gomez, trotting back, 
pulled up in front of his aides. 



184 Marching with Gomez 

Gonzales walked across the square. He was pale 
and he puffed hard at a cigarette held between his 
teeth. As he passed Gomez, who sat motionless 
with machete still drawn, he dropped the cigarette 
from his mouth and turned. "A word, only a word, 
with the commander-in-chief." The corporal looked 
at Gomez, but saw only a shake of the head. " For- 
ward, forward, hombre, man alive," he said, putting 
the . flat of his hand on Gonzales' back, with a 
slight push. Then Gonzales hung his head and 
walked on. 

Gonzales was not brave. His life had been easy 
and was something to lose. He was placed against 
the guasima tree and tied to it by one of the asis- 
tentes with a stout lariat, while another lighted a 
cigarette and placed it between his lips. Gonzales 
was limp, and the jaunty little air of yesterday was 
gone. There was no pride to replace it. One of 
his own neat white handkerchiefs was quickly tied 
over his face. Then, with arms behind him and 
the rope about his waist, his chin sunk on his 
breast, but the cigarette remained between his lips. 
The asistentes jumped to one side. 

There was a flash of Gomez' machete and four 
shots. Gonzales was not dead. He hung forward, 
choking and swaying on the rope. The corporal 
drew his revolver and held its muzzle against Gon- 
zales' ear. Then there was a smothered report, fol- 
lowed by two shrill notes of the bugle — " Forward ! " 
The escolta took up the march, and the other troops 
fell in behind, while Gomez trotted off to the head 
of the column. 

The little group of asistentes remained to bury 



Gomez' Moral Campaign in Camaguey 185 

Gonzales. They were ragged fellows, and their 
perquisites were the neat white suit, that one wash- 
ing would make good, a pair of serviceable boots 
that were good stock in trade, even if they did 
not fit, and the jipi-japa hat, that had fallen to 
one side. 1 

1 " A Revolution," wrote Dr. Hernandez, "gathers to its breast all classes of 
men ; but with the distinct understanding that the bad become good and the good 
practise every effort to become better, otherwise its standard becomes a refuge for 
those who desire to follow more conveniently, and with less danger, criminal and 
disorderly lives. In such a case a Revolution, even for Liberty, would not justify 
the vast and unavoidable destruction of life and property wherever its flag is unfurled." 



Chapter VII 
Gomez and Hernandez 




I 



The tax-collector in ' ' cepo de 
campana. ' ' 



T was at the trial of a 
tax-collector of the 
Civil Government, 
whose name I have 
forgotten, that I first saw 
Dr. Hernandez distinguish 
himself. This tax-collector 
appeared on the day that 
Manoel Gonzales was de- 
tained, recognized him, 
shook hands with him 
knowingly, and after that 
unfortunate gentleman was 
tried and shot, he left camp, giving a plausible pre- 
text to the guards who demanded his pass, and faded 
away like the mist. 

It was clear that the tax-collector had lied to the 
sentries, and that he had broken the regulations in 
leaving without permission. He was known to have 
money about him, and Gomez, on the theory that 
an honest man knows no fear, sent a detachment to 
run him down. He was captured in a prefectura on 
the fifth, and promptly brought into camp. The 
circumstantial evidence that he was dishonest seemed 

186 



Gomez and Hernandez 187 

sufficient to put him in the stocks, call a court-mar- 
tial, and divide his equipments among the staff. 

There was difficulty in finding a man to defend the 
prisoner, because every one believed him guilty, and 
the defence of a criminal is an unpopular task; but 
Dr. Hernandez, seeing that he was without friends, 
undertook it. The trial was longer than that of 
Gonzales. It was begun early in the afternoon and 
ended at midnight. 

Hernandez made a psychological study of the 
prisoner, sifted the evidence, and became convinced 
of his innocence. He demonstrated that the man's 
accounts, as receiver of taxes for the government, 
were straight, and that he could not have appro- 
priated public funds. The man was merely a physi- 
cal coward. He had witnessed Gonzales' execution, 
and had heard of the shooting of the prefect and the 
negro corporal. He formed an exaggerated dread 
of Gomez' discipline, and so ran away out of ordi- 
nary timidity. He lied to the guards as a timid 
man would be likely to do. When Hernandez 
closed his defence, the court acquitted the tax- 
collector, with a trifling sentence for the irregularity 
of his exit from camp, and his equipments were 
returned to him. 

The result of this trial caused a temporary 
estrangement between Gomez and Dr. Hernandez. 
Gomez would not confirm the finding of the court. 
He simply called the affair off, and peremptorily 
ordered the tax-collector out of sight and out of 
camp. Gomez did not believe the man innocent, 
and Hernandez did. Gomez thought that Her- 
nandez had been influenced by an emotional kind- 



1 88 Marching with Gomez 

ness of heart, to save the life of a criminal who had 
ingeniously covered his tracks. Whatever Gomez 
thinks, he says, with Spartan directness, and without 
regard for the feelings of anybody. 1 Hernandez felt 
hurt, and from that day until just before the Sara- 
toga fight, Hernandez did not mess with Gomez, 
but with General Castillo, who had succeeded Vega 
as chief of staff. 

It was four days later that additional evidence 
came out in the tax-collector's case, which justified 
Hernandez. Gomez, old soldier though he was, 
had erred for once. As Gomez never spared any 
one whatever comment he considered just, he was 
quick to admit it when in the wrong. He said 
something to Dr. Hernandez, and that evening the 
doctor turned up at supper and was again one of 
" the family." 

In those first weeks of June it was my privilege 
to linger of evenings, by headquarters, and hear the 
war discussed in every phase by Gomez and Her- 
nandez. Of the ultimate success of their cause, 
neither had the shadow of a doubt ; but when the 
trouble would end, neither could prophesy. 

Both were painfully aware of the suffering and 
death that every additional day meant for untold 
hundreds of helpless old men, women, and children. 
Yet the dragging on of the war was not without 
advantage, because it trained Cubans in self-denial ; 
it disciplined the disorderly element, and gave the 

1 Once as I was making a pencil sketch of his horse, Gomez caught me at it 
and looked over my shoulder. "A very bad drawing," said he kindly, but in a 
tone of deep conviction, "I would advise you to follow some other career." 



Gomez and Hernandez 189 

little Civil Government a chance to spread its wings 
and gain experience before attempting to fly alone. 

As Hernandez said, " the life of one entire gen- 
eration is not too great a sacrifice to the prosperity 
of countless generations to come." 

For Hernandez, there was the glory of conflict, 
and the opportunity to develop his rather unusual 
abilities. For Gomez, continuance of the struggle 
meant daily hardships and lack of rest or comfort 
in illness, a life delightful to a young man, but try- 
ing for one of advanced years. For Gomez there 
was the chance of a stray bullet that might prevent 
his seeing the aim of his life — the work of his brain 
and hands — completed. 

Gomez had long since ceased to count on assist- 
ance of any kind from the United States. Concern- 
ing recognition I heard him say, " I have a mind 
to forbid any man's speaking that word in camp. 
Recognition is like the rain ; it is a good thing if 
it comes, and a good thing if it doesn't come." 

Gomez distrusted Americans. He thought them 
mere sharpers. " They continually fill their news- 
papers with sympathy for our cause," he would say, 
" but what do they do? They sell us arms at good 
round prices, — as readily as they sell supplies to the 
Spaniards, who oppress us ; but they never gave us 
a thing — not even a rifle." 

Gomez held the old-fashioned theory of the moral 
responsibility of journalism. He did not realize that 
successful newspapers are struck off" nowadays like 
so much calico, with no other moral purpose in view 
than an extensive sale. Gomez held the editor of 
the New York Herald in extreme contempt. "The 



190 Marching with Gomez 

fellow \el tio ese] publishes news in one column that 
is favorable to us, in another he calls us brigands ; 
can he not take one side or the other, or none at all, 
like an honest man ? " x 





fey fefr & jLtu^ <& 

Fragment of a letter from Gomez. 

Translation. — General Gomez believes, as do his followers, that if the war 
does not soon end, Cuba will offer to the world a sad picture of utmost misery and 
strife. Since they realize that Cuba's wealth is the cause of her bondage they are 
determined that everything must be destroyed. In the Field, 25 May, 1896. 

Maximo Gomez. 



1 Austere as he was, Gomez once warmed under flattery. It was a wet night on 
the Matahambre, and Colete and I, with our backs in the rain, were chatting after 
supper in his shelter tent. Colete had just observed that neither Washington nor 
Bolivar had left sons to hand down their names. " But you, general," I said, quite 
unconsciously, "are more fortunate." Gomez frowned and shrugged his shoulders 
with a grunt that meant "nonsense." Yet I felt that he was secretly pleased. 
Gomez' favorite son Pane ho (Frank) was later to die at Maceo's side, faithful to 
the last like his father's son. 



Gomez and Hernandez 191 

These talks, which were not for publication, were 
held of evenings, when the weather was fine, under 
Gomez' bit of canvas. They were never long ; for 
Gomez retired early, after the bugle sounded "Silen- 
cio." Often before reveille the " old man " was 
awake, writing private despatches or personal let- 
ters, in his hammock, by the flickering light of 
a yellow Mambi taper fastened on a stick driven 
into the ground, while an aide stood guard and the 
camp slept. Of afternoons, when not on the road, 
he dictated to his secretary, read letters, or dozed 
the siesta. But at supper-time, when fresh green 
leaves were spread at Gomez' feet, and the sauce- 
pan, with its mess of soup or chopped meat and 
plantains, was put before him, and we gathered 
with our tin plates, knives, and spoons, and squatted 
in a semicircle, our asistentes standing atten- 
tively behind, topics of the day were discussed over 
again. 

Hernandez sometimes dreamed of the future of 
free Cuba. He favored a generous extension of 
suffrage to include respectable foreigners settled in 
the Island practically on application for citizenship. 
With the rebuilding of ruined ingenios, and a develop- 
ment, that corrupt exactions of Spanish officials had 
hitherto rendered unprofitable, of the great mining, 
timber, fruit, and cattle interests of the eastern prov- 
inces, followed by an extension of the railroad sys- 
tem, and in every branch of electrics, an enormous 
demand would arise for every kind of skilled labor. 
An ideal class of immigrants would be drawn to the 
country, and the resultant blending of Latin and 
Saxon races would produce a sturdy nation, active 



192 Marching with Gomez 

and progressive in commerce, — in fact, Hernandez 
saw in the Cuba of the future an England of the 
Western Hemisphere. Hernandez admired Ameri- 
cans for their strength and vigor, and was a close 
student of our constitution, which he held to embody 
the proper theories for successful self-government. 

Gomez, as a practical soldier, did not venture to 
speculate on Cuba's future in detail. It was looking 
forward enough for him to see Cuba under her own 
flag and government. " One does not plan one's 
house," he said, " until one owns the soil on which 
it is to stand." 1 Neither of these men approved of 
any scheme of annexation to the United States, or 
saw any conclusion of the war short of absolute in- 
dependence. As Gomez said, "Autonomy might 
have been accepted, if offered in good faith, very 
early in the war ; but since the time of Martinez 
Campos, it has been out of the question." These 
unyielding views on annexation and autonomy were 
universally held by fighting Cubans in the Manigua. 

Gomez' hobby was the punishing of evil-doers. 
On meeting General Serafln Sanchez some weeks 
later, he said as he embraced him, — a rare mark of 
esteem from Gomez, — "When I see an honest man, 
I feel a year younger ; but these rascals, these 
scoundrels " (referring to General Suarez, whom he 
had just cashiered), " they put me back six months. 
But we'll send them all to the guasima ; we'll hang 
them all before we get through ! " 

After a skirmish, Gomez was invariably genial and 
inclined to jest with those nearest him, often pacing 

1 As a Dominican, a foreigner born, Gomez has no political future in "Free 
Cuba." 



Gomez and Hernandez 193 

up and down in front of his shelter-tent. His humor 
was homely and honest, sometimes slightly coarse. 

On one occasion, lecturing an officer who was to 
be tried for cowardice, Gomez turned to the breath- 
less audience clustered behind him. " A brave 
man," he said, " may be forgiven many things. He 
may err, he may sin ; but there is good in him. I 
would go down to the infernal regions with a brave 
man. But a coward cannot be trusted. A coward 
will lie, a coward will thieve, he will abuse women. 
He — " here Gomez caught the glance of a buxom 
matron who had come, with her two dark-eyed 
daughters, sight-seeing, to camp. " He would be 
an old goat [cabron], he would let another man 
make love to his wife." 

It is not usual, in armies, for a commander to 
publicly reprimand officers, even non-commissioned 
officers. It is supposed to destroy the authority of 
their rank; but Gomez, I think, did so for a pur- 
pose. He was surrounded by men unused to 
weighing points of honor with nicety. Though well 
meaning, they were ignorant of many things, and 
these lectures, generalizing on what a man owed to 
himself and to the fatherland, gave them new ideas. 
Gomez' savings were widely repeated, and the moral 
tone of the army was raised. He reprimanded a 
soldier once for selling his horse to another. " Have 
you no self-respect ? " he said. " You sell for per- 
sonal gain a horse that, like the arms you carry, is 
the property of the Republic, and is entrusted to 
you. You sell what is not your own ! It is as if a 
child sold to another the eggs or milk from the 
farmyard of their common mother." 



194 Marching with Gomez 

There were cases where Gomez' jests skimmed 
over the heads of those at whom they were aimed. 
I clip from Harper s Weekly the naive account by 
T. R. Dawley of his first meeting with Gomez. 
Mr. Dawley evidently did not win the commander's 
good graces. 

" To talk with the great man," says Dawley, 1 " it 
was necessary for me to crawl under his canvas, for 
he made no attempt to crawl out, and the canvas 
was not high enough for a man to stand up under. 
After having answered his few questions concerning 
myself, he said to one of his aides, in a pretentious 
way, — 

" ' Take him to the deposit for correspondents.' 

" I had heard of deposits for horses and cattle, 
deposits for sweet-potatoes and coffee, but a deposit 
for correspondents struck me as something new ; and 
I was not long in discovering that it was a feature of 
the camp as novel to the aide whom Gomez had di- 
rected to conduct me, as it was to myself." 

A " deposit " (deposito), as Mr. Dawley ex- 
plains, is a place where you put either animals or 
things. It was exactly as if Gomez had said, "Take 
him to the pound." 

" Gomez," wrote Sylvester Scovel, " has all his 
life dominated undisciplined men by severity and 
power of will : his temper is vile." 

Mr. Scovel, who made the invasion with Go'mez 
and saw more of him than any other correspondent, 
played a part in a scene that opens another side of 
Gomez' character. 

1 See Harper s Weekly, May 19, 1897. 



Gomez and Hernandez 195 

It was in the days of doubt, and Gomez, probably 
under great pressure, gave loose rein to his always 
fiery temper. For one cause or another, he several 
times gave " planazos " to certain of his officers, 
arousing a vindictive spirit among them, — almost 
the inception of mutiny. Scovel had won the con- 
fidence of both general and staff. He heard the 
whisperings about the camp-fires and saw the sullen 
looks ; and he knew that the hot-blooded man of 
Latin race will often sacrifice obvious duty and the 
interests of his country, to regard for " his honor." 

One day Scovel wrote a letter to his paper. It 
recounted in glowing colors the successes of the 
march, and the hopes of the insurrection. He 
closed somewhat as follows: — 

"The success of Cuban arms depends on the 
unity and co-operation of the rebel forces. The 
temper of the commander-in-chief has lately become 
so uncontrolled as to endanger good feeling among 
his officers, and act as a disorganizing element. But 
surely the old commander who has given the best 
years of his life to the Cuban cause will restrain 
himself in time." 

Scovel handed this letter to the interpreter to 
translate aloud to the commander-in-chief, and 
he sat down near by, nerving himself for a storm. 
At the closing passage, the old general, whom 
no Cuban had ever dared criticise to his face, be- 
came ashen with rage. He listened with every 
muscle taut, while the interpreter hesitated, mouthed, 
and stammered over the closing lines. There was 
a moment of silence; then Gomez rose. He went 
to where Scovel still sat, put one arm over his 



196 



Marching with Gomez 



shoulder, and patted him, while moisture welled 
under his spectacles, and one tear slid down his 
furrowed cheek to the white moustache below. 

Next morning, before marching, Gomez ordered 
the assembly blown, and as publicly as he had 
reprimanded others he apologized to his officers in 
the presence of all the forces. 







' ' The Hermita San Jeronimo. ' ' 



_j^m$M^ 



It was on the fifth of June, by a mere coincidence, 
that we rode over the scene of the first machete 
charge of the war. It was the Camino Real, from 
San Jeronimo to Puerto Principe, a broad avenue 
in the forest, with trees and brush well cleared away 
on either side of the road. Along it stood the tele- 
graph poles leading to Puerto Principe. Just one 
year before, three hundred Spanish soldiers were 
acting as guards to some workmen who were repair- 
ing the telegraph wire which had been cut by a small 



Gomez and Hernandez 197 

partida on the night before. The advance guard of 
Maceo's forces came on them suddenly. It was a 
portion of the road overlooked by an old chapel, 
the Hermita San Jeronimo (deserted by its priest), 
a straight-away course for five hundred yards. 
Maceo's men dashed through there, cutting down 
everything in sight. The attack was so sudden, 
that only a few of the soldiers or laborers escaped 
to the brush. The Spaniards never came back to 
repair the line or bury their dead. Wild pigs wor- 
ried and ate the bodies, scattering the bones every- 
where, and white fragments of skulls lay on the road 
like shells on a beach. 

Note. — At San Jeronimo, one of Gomez' trumpeters brought me a little 
flower, called "La Libertad" (which I reproduce on page 117), with five green 
leaves, forming a perfect star, white rose-like petals and a fragrance like the violet. 
"La Libertad" appears in the forests of eastern Cuba in May, when the soil 
moistens with the first showers of the rainy season, and for this reason, according to 
a local superstition, freedom will come to Cuba in the month of May. 



Chapter VIII 

The Battle of Saratoga 

Headquarters x of Gomez ' Staff, Najaza, Puerto Principe 
Province, — Thursday, June iith. 

FOR the first time since he has been in 
Camaguey, Spanish troops have come out 
to meet Gomez. Two infantry regiments, 
numbering nearly two thousand men, and two 
hundred cavalry, marched from the city of Puerto 
Principe to within three leagues of us three days ago. 
I send to the Journal my field notes of the three days' 
fighting which has intervened. 

The First Day, June gth. — At daybreak we had 
news that General Jimenez Castellanos was march- 
ing from Puerto Principe to meet us. Gomez is 
breaking camp. He has four hundred cavalry and 
one hundred infantry. 2 

i p.m. — We have marched in solid column by 
the high-road towards Puerto Principe to meet the 
Spaniards ; but they have passed in by a round- 
about way, and are encamped on the Saratoga estate, 
near Najaza Mountain, where we camped yesterday. 
We turn back, taking their trail. The road is cut 
deep with ruts of field-pieces and caissons. 

4 p.m. — Smoke of the Spanish camp-fires in full 

1 From the Neiv York Journal, July 5, 1896. 

2 Exclusive of one hundred impedimenta. 



^ -HS ^ . ^1T»1T^ A^^%. 







OPFN PLAIN 



-f — y -t ^, -» -J -a 






aoo Marching with Gomez 

sight. They are on a bend of the River Najaza, 
covering both banks on rolling ground. Thick 
forests are on their north and west and open hilly 
country to the east. To the south is a stony hill 
overlooking a savanna five hundred yards square, 
ending in a forest. 

4.30 p.m. — Gomez is leading the attack. We 
are approaching the enemy's lines from the south 
by the main high-road. There is a barbed wire 
fence between us and the river. The men of 
Colonel Calunga's squadron are cutting the wires 
with their machetes. Then they charge on the 
camp to the left of the hill. Major Sanchez 
Agramonte follows, charging fiercely to the right 
of the hill. There is shooting, and the machetes 
are flashing. Some carry their rifles across the 
pommel in the bridle hand, machetes in the right. 
Across the river, Castellanos' staff" can be seen 
running from the house to their horses. 

4.45 p.m. — Our men have halted. A deep 
arroyo prevents a general machete charge. The 
Spaniards are in plain sight, — dark gray lines 
splashed with the red of their sashes. Their 
cavalry are standing in the rear, under the trees. 

4.55 p.m. — Calunga's men of the expeditionaries 
are firing deliberately, sitting in their saddles. Span- 
ish bullets coming thick, but too high. Direction 
good ! Elevation bad ! You can feel them in the 
air. Sometimes they make you wink. The smoke 
from our Remingtons in the firing line is getting 
thick. Can scarcely see the Spaniards through it. 1 

1 In fact, we could scarcely see one another. Men banged away behind and on 
either side of you, so you ran some risk of being "winged" by your friends. An 



The Battle of Saratoga 201 

5.05 p.m. — I ride to the left of the hill where 
Sanchez is. Our infantry are shooting into the 
enemy's right flank from the woods. The Penin- 
sulars are getting excited : they shoot higher and 
faster. Gomez, followed by his staff, is riding 
placidly up and down, peering at the Spanish lines 
through the smoke. He has stationed his escolta 
on the plain back of us as a reserve. He has sent 
the squadrons of Ramon Guerra and Colonel Bazan 
by a roundabout way to attack the camp from the 
north. 

The Spanish are opening on us with artillery from 
the high land just to the right and rear of the hill, 
on their side of the arroyo : two guns. Elevation 
all wrong ; cannot even hear the sing of their tra- 
jectiles. 

It is inspiring to see Gomez under gun-fire, his 
eyes flashing with interest. He looks twenty years 
younger. His hat is cocked to one side, and he twirls 
his little machete in his wrist — a trick he has. 

5.20 p.m. — They are bringing the wounded from 
the front. Some are in the arms of comrades, rid- 
ing double, to be left with the impedimenta. In 
the firing line some have had their horses shot and 
are fighting on foot. Gomez trots up on the hill in 
clear sight of the Spanish line. They are well to 
this side of the river, but not advancing. Bullets 
very thick, and we come back. 

5.30 p.m. — Enemy won't advance! Signal for 
our men to retire. Calunga and Sanchez fall back. 

accident of that kind might easily happen in a smoky firing line, especially when 
mounted, as I know from experience ; for I once came very near shooting a com- 
rade in a troop skirmish, practising on silhouette targets at Fort Bayard, N.M. 



202 Marching with Gomez 

Infantry (our " Hundred Heroes ") coming one by- 
one out of the woods, firing and retreating, a line 
of dark-brown figures. They look like Apaches. 
Some of them crouch and duck — that is odd for 
soldiers of their experience ! We hear the volleys 
of Bazan and Guerra attacking in the rear. 

A solid shot falls in a rain-puddle twenty yards 
from Gomez, throwing a shaft of water thirty feet 
into the air. That is the best shot I have seen to- 
day. 

6.30 p.m. — We are going into camp half a league 
away. Calunga and Guerra are to shoot into the 
enemy during the night. 

8 p.m. — Dr. Hernandez, who was at Gomez' 
elbow all the afternoon, assists Gustavo Abreu, staff 
surgeon, in charge of the wounded. He sends 
word that four have been killed outright and six 
badly wounded. There are others "winged" who 
have not gone on the sick report. 

The Second Day. — Dawn. — All night long there 
was shooting from the hill which our men occupied 
into the Spanish camp, wherever a light, showed, 
to keep the Peninsulars awake. Gomez is prepar- 
ing to renew the attack. 

6 a.m. — In the field. Gomez making every 
attempt, by dashes to their very lines and hasty 
retreats, to excite the enemy and draw them out 
into the open. 

8 a.m. — Gomez has just ridden with his staff 
over the crest of the hill under a hot and noisy fire. 
Enemy are throwing shells into the woods to the 
south, where our reserves are stationed. 

10.30 a.m. — The shooting continues steadily, 



The Battle of Saratoga 



203 



but here and there. Calunga's squadron has made 
a dash at close range, crossing the arroyo almost 
into the Spanish camp. A negro's horse was struck 
in the croup by a cannon-ball and killed, 1 its remains 
entangling the rider. Lieutenant Tarifa de Armas, 
with two others, pulled him 
out under a shower of 
Mauser bullets. Saddle 
and bridle saved also. 

Noon. — The Spaniards 
have advanced, the' centre 
of their line covering the 
hill from behind which we 
yesterday 
morning. 
It is what 
the time 

been trying to get them to do, — to advance into 
the open country where a machete charge from both 
sides would cut them up. We retire now to the 
shade of some palm trees at a little distance to rest 
and wait. 

Captain Garcia, of Tampa, Florida, General Cas- 
tillo's aide, and I have been sitting with our backs 
against a fat palm tree. A moment ago Castillo 
beckoned, and Garcia jumped up and ran to him. He 
had just left when a Mauser bullet snapped into the 
tree, quite low, where he had been sitting. Had Garcia 



attacked them 
and early this 



That is 
Gomez 



good, 
has all 




1 The mangling of a horse and the jolting of a negro were the sole results of the 
labor of dragging two heavy field-pieces all the way from Puerto Principe, through 
soft roads, where they left ruts like city coal-wagons. Some of the shells were 
"cold storage" and burst harmlessly, "scattering bon-bons about," as Tarifa de 
Armas remarked, showing me an iron ball as big as a marble, which he said plumped 
into the open pocket of his linen coat. De Armas, by the way, was one of the 
heirs to the late proprietor of the Socorro de Armas place back in Matanzas. 



204 Marching with Gomez 

remained, the bullet would have pierced his abdo- 
men and killed him. As it was, it pierced on its 
way the instep of a man who was walking by. The 
man is irritated, but not painfully hurt. 

1.50 p.m. — They have brought in a steer and are 
killing it for breakfast. The men are building 
parillas — most of them have had nothing much 
to eat for twenty-four hours. Through our glasses 
we can see the Spaniards hard at work, as the after- 
noon sets in, building a breastwork of red stone 
over the crest of the hill. 

3 p.m. — Calunga advances within carbine range, 
and firing begins again. 

4 p.m. — We make a general attack again on both 
wings of the Spanish line. Guerra and Bazan are 
still popping away to the rear of the enemy's camp. 

Major Guerin, of Gomez' staff, has just been 
wounded in the hip, the fifth member of the staff 
hurt in the last five skirmishes we have had, — ap- 
parently not dangerous, though. The bullet pierced, 
on its way, a brass Remington cartridge Guerin 
carried loose in the pocket of his linen coat. 

5.30. — Since noon they have not fired with their 
cannon. 1 The cavalry we have not seen. Apparently 
they are afraid of machetes. 

Sundown. — Back to camp, leaving Guerra to keep 
the enemy awake to-night, while Bazan's men take 
a rest. 

Dr. Hernandez reports five killed to-day and 
thirty-four wounded ; almost all from Calunga's 
force. The enemy are in a pocket. If they stay 

1 Castellanos was apparently glad enough to shoot off his heavy ammunition as 
soon as he could, and drag empty caissons back to Puerto Principe. 



The Battle of Saratoga 205 

there, they will keep getting shot into, and certainly 
our fire from all sides into such a crowded space 
must be causing them much loss. If they advance 
onto the open savanna, it will give us a chance to use 
the machete. 

The last man killed outright this afternoon was 
Major Jose Cruz, a Dominican, who commanded the 
infantry ; a very courteous old fellow, with pleasant 
manners. He was killed a little before sunset. His 
infantry were not fighting at the time at all ; they 
were taking supper under the palm trees. As 
Major Cruz was walking up and down looking on, 
a stray Mauser bullet struck him in the forehead. 
His knees doubled under him, and he fell on his 
face without a word, dying instantly. 

Third Day. — Heard firing all night. We have 
saddled our horses. Ammunition has been brought 
up from a secret store in the forest, on pack-mules, 
and distributed, — ten rounds per man. Off to the 
battlefield. 

6.30 a.m. — The enemy have thrown out a solid 
line of infantry beyond the hill as far as the high- 
road, where they remain. They are firing constantly 
in our direction. The sun is well up and in their 
faces. We can see distinctly the flash of their rifles. 
Their powder is practically smokeless. They prob- 
ably cannot see us well, for we are in the long grass 
on the skirts of the forest, but they know our direc- 
tion. It looks as though they were going to make 
a general advance. Gomez, with the escolta and 
infantry, moves to the rising ground to the north- 
east of their position, where the infantry can stand 
firm as a reserve; the cavalry can drive through 



The Battle of Saratoga 207 

their left flank on a down grade with the machete 
as soon as they move onto the savanna. 

7 a.m. — Our infantry is deployed into the woods, 
firing at three hundred yards. It is now time for 
the staff to take up the march after Agramonte and 
the escolta, and we pass from the woods to the rear 
of the infantry, and then out into the open under a 
rattling fire, and well aimed, for the sun is now high. 

Our prize mule has just been shot under Gomez' 
cook. It was a beautiful mule. I sketched it a few 
days ago. It stumbled and fell, scattering pots and 
pans and sweet-potatoes and pieces of cold meat 
over the rocky path. Moron, the cook, is shifting 
the saddle to the mule ridden by Grillo, the scullion, 
who must now walk. Both are angry. 

The wounded are hurried past us. I have counted 
five, — two officers killed outright. One is a Lieu- 
tenant Bertrand, 1 shot through the head. His body 
is swung over a led horse. The other was a young 
aide of President Cisneros, Diego Ruiz, who was at- 
tached to the escoita last night. His uncle is carry- 
ing the body in his arms. Ruiz was shot through 
the heart : his eyes are half-closed and his face is 
very pale. 

At dawn this morning I observed the neatness of 
Ruiz' costume and the elegance of his equipment. 
He had just come from the government, where no 
fighting is done. He had a particularly fine pair of 
silver spurs. As we formed near headquarters I no- 
ticed those spurs especially, and deliberated whether 
it would be offensive if I offered to buy them at his 
own price. I was still thinking of the spurs as we 

1 Not the Bertrand whom I met back in Matanzas. 



208 Marching with Gomez 

took to the rising land under gunshot. Then I 
turned, to see their owner past any earthly bargain. 

8 o'clock a.m. — We are well placed on high land 
waiting for them to do something. They can only 
attack us at a disadvantage, — and then for a charge. 

The enemy are retiring. Wonder what they are at ! 

Noon. — The Spaniards are in full retreat on the 
Puerto Principe road. It appears that they received 
a reinforcement of seven hundred men from the city 
before daybreak, and it was this reinforcement that 
advanced beyond the road and covered the retreat 
of the main force. 

Gomez has moved into the camp just deserted by 
the enemy, and has sent Guerra to harass the re- 
treating column. I find my couch of saplings of 
four nights ago, which saves building a new one. 




Cot of saplings, with my canvas hammock doing duty as a shelter tent. 

6 p.m. — I rode over the camp this afternoon. 
There were fully twenty dead horses and mules, 
and I have counted ten graves, each evidently con- 
taining a number of Spanish soldiers. One of these 
graves they dug at the last moment, and the bodies 
in it were only partly covered. There were seven 
bodies thrown in crosswise, any way at all, and pro- 



The Battle of Saratoga 209 

truding hands and feet and faces could be seen 
between loose clods of earth. 

A soldier of the advance guard found a new pair 
of boots on one of the dead, and pulled him out to 
remove them. The rest were disinterred in hopes 
of another stroke of luck. One of the seven was 
wrapped in a good mackintosh coat and looked like 
an officer. All were put back, however; but care- 
lessly, as before. 

I sketched the grave as I saw it. One face was 
uncovered, — that of a negro, evidently of the 
guerilla cavalry. His eyes were wide open, with 
a dull stare in them, and he must have died sud- 
denly. Those eyes stared from the heap until one 
of the men, with a " caramba ! " tore a double 
handful of grass up by the roots and slapped it 
over the face, covering it. At a very conservative 
estimate, the Spaniards buried sixty men, for some 
of these graves were larger than the one we opened. 
Some graves near the house were concealed by 
boards thrown over them. Possibly there were 
graves that escaped my notice. The regulars 
were in too much of a hurry even to fire the 
house. Bits of bloody clothing, torn rags of 
blankets, empty cigarette packages, and pasteboard 
packages such as the Mauser ammunition is served 
in, were scattered all about. Empty sardine tins 
everywhere, seemed to be the only traces of quarter- 
master supplies on the field. Wherever there were 
stones or logs or mounds, they had been utilized as 
breastworks for soldiers who had burrowed behind 
them. Throughout the camp, trees were barked 
and scarred. Behind the body of one dead horse, 



The Battle of Saratoga 1 1 1 

a prop had been placed, and the crushed grass 
showed that a soldier had taken refuge there. 

In the farmhouse where Castellanos and his staff 
made their headquarters, there were torn papers, 
documents, and muster-rolls, one of which I pre- 
served, and old bandages strewn about. The gen- 
eral disorder told plainly of the excitement our 
steady fire caused them night and day. 

ii p.m. — Peasants say the Spaniards marched 
with two hundred wounded. Three died on the 
way and were buried by the roadside. Guerra and 
his men followed the column to the outskirts of 
Puerto Principe, shooting into it whenever an 
opportunity presented. As an outcome of the 
fighting, we have eleven killed and sixty wounded. 
There are also many who have trifling wounds, not 
entitling them to be put on the sick report. 

Note. — A few days after Saratoga, I read General Castellanos' official report 
of the fight, in a Puerto Principe newspaper that found its way to camp. 

According to Castellanos' own statement, he expended 50,000 rounds of rifle am- 
munition. ( I quote from memory, having unfortunately lost the newspaper in which 
the original official report was published. ) This allows about 4545 bullets to kill 
one insurgent, making obsolete the old Franco-Prussian War ratio of 1 000 to one 
man. 

The following account, based on Castellanos' report, was cabled to New York 
from Havana, and published in the Journal on June 15th, before my own account 
was received of course : — 

"Gomez fights a two days' battle. Incomplete details have been received of 
an important battle at Najasa. Unofficial reports state that Gomez was in command 
of the rebels, who numbered 5000 men. He made a manoeuvre with the intention 
of leading the Spanish commander to believe that he intended to surround the troops, 
who were encamped on the plains of Saratoga. The manoeuvre failed of the desired 
effect, which was to compel the Spanish forces to retreat. The rebels then attacked 
the troops with machetes, but the latter repulsed the charges. 

"The battle is said to have lasted forty-two hours. General Godov, with a 
strong Spanish force, arrived on the scene, and with his assistance the troops suc- 
ceeded in forcing the rebels to retire. 

"The battle is said to have been similar to that which took place at Guasimas in 
the last war." (The battle of Las Guasimas, by the way, was a distinct defeat for 
the Spaniards. ) 



212 



Marching with Gomez 






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picked up at Saratoga {one-third actual size). 



Chapter IX 
Echoes of Saratoga 




G 



OMEZ' sole object in har- 
rying the Spanish troops at 
Saratoga was to create a 
moral effect among the in- 
surgents of Camaguey. The skir- 
mish did not further the cause an 
inch, except indirectly, as can be 
seen from the wide publication of 
Castellanos' reports by the Spanish 
The youngest soldier, authorities, who would not recognize 
a defeat in anything short of annihila- 
tion of their own forces. At the same time, Castel- 
lanos would venture more gingerly from the shelter 
of the forts in future, and his men must have lost 
in that confidence without which soldiers of Latin 
race cannot fight successfully. 

That Camaguey sadly needed a freshening exam- 
ple of energy was apparent from the fact that 
General Suarez, commander of the insurgent forces 
in that province, lay in his hammock on the foothills 
of the Sierra Najazes, three leagues away, with two 
hundred armados, while the fight lasted. In Suarez' 
camp, as I know from men who were there, the 
echoes of artillery could be distinctly heard. The aid 

214 



Echoes of Saratoga 2 1 5 

of those two hundred men would have been of great 
assistance to Gomez, since it would have enabled 
him to check and perhaps cut up the reinforcement 
under Godoy that came to Castellanos' assistance, 
and to render the Spanish rout more decisive. 

Directly after the fight Gomez sent a force to 
bring Suarez to him, " acting as his escort," and 
gave the command of the Camaguey forces tem- 
porarily to Avellino Rosas, a South American 
officer of distinction. On appointing Rosas, 
Gomez made a speech to the soldiers, saying that 
Camaguey, formerly renowned for courage, was in 
disgrace. A Spanish general ' had publicly stated at 
a banquet that " one could buy the greatest chief in 
Camaguey [meaning Suarez] for a pound of choco- 
late." He now trusted that a moral reform had set 
in, and expected great things from them all in the 
future. 

Suarez' arrival made no commotion of any sort ; 
and while he remained with us, he could only be 
seen at " bunk fatigue," dozing under his shelter 
tent just as far from headquarters as possible. Pend- 
ing his court-martial, Gomez had assigned him to 
the command of the impedimenta. 

An incident of the morning of June 12th was 
the formal burial of a very gallant mulatto captain, 
Manuel Ramirez, of the escort. He had led a squad 
of the escolta in harassing the retreating Spaniards, 
and fell under a volley with two wounds through his 
body. He was in advance of his men at the time, 
who rode up and captured his body. He was brought 

1 Castellanos. 



2l6 



Marching with Gomez 



to camp that night, and lay by headquarters covered 
with a bit of oule. Dr. Hernan- 
dez read a service at daybreak in 
the centre of a square formed by 
the cavalry troops with us, and 
the faithful " hundred heroes," 
who had lost their own commander 
two days before. Ramirez was 
buried near the farmhouse called 
Saratoga, and his grave was 
marked by a stake — nothing 
more ; some day he will be 
reinterred, with many who 
have similarly fallen, un- 
der a proper headstone. 
The wounded were 
already quartered 
among the peas- 
ants, whose scat- 
tered huts on the 
Sierra Najazes be- 
came little hospi- 
tals. 1 

Eleven of the 
wounded found 
shelter on Polvo- 
rin Mountain with 
the celebrated 
Rosa, known wide- 
ly through the dis- 
trict for her skill as a nurse and her knowledge 
of medicinal herbs. In an acre of forest La Rosa 

1 Effects of the Mauser bullet — see Appendix E. 




La Rosa. 



Echoes of Saratoga 217 

could find remedies for every ill. From the shoots 
of a tiny shrub she made a tea equal to quinine 
in checking a fever ; from the. bark of a certain 
tree she made a plaster that would stop any hem- 
orrhage. She had plants at her command that sup- 
plied her with antiseptics and sleeping draughts. l 
She was an independent, masterful negress, pro- 
foundly confident in her own methods, and scorning 
"regular practitioners" as quacks. 

La Rosa first achieved her reputation in the last 
war, when she conducted a hospital in her house on 
the Polvorin. Once the guerrilleros came ; but she 
hid her seventeen patients in the thickets almost 
within hearing of the enemy, and stole out by night 
to fill her pails and jugs of water at the spring. 
The guerrilleros spent a day and a night in her 
house, and departed after burning it to the ground. 

La Rosa knows all the great Cuban chiefs per- 
sonally, and speaks of them more familiarly than 
any one else would dare to. She consented to be 
sketched, and put on her best turban, with a calico 
gown of riotous color. But her husband, Jose, a 
meek colored man about half her size, was timid and 
suspicious : he would not sit for his picture. He 
knew a person once who consented to be photo- 
graphed and fell ill of a fever shortly afterwards. 
He was old now, and would run no risks. 

It is saddening to find men whom you saw yes- 
terday joking and swearing and boasting, lying si- 
lent with half-closed eyes, or gasping in spasms of 

1 I made a careful list of Rosa's drugs, with the names of the roots and trees 
from which she compounded them 5 unfortunately for the advancement of science it 
was lost, with some other correspondence. 



2i 8 Marching with Gomez 

pain ; I did not bother La Rosa much with ques- 
tions, but retreated, — leaving her to soothe the 
weak and bully the convalescent. 

It was on the first afternoon of the fight at 
Saratoga that I rode stirrup to stirrup with the 
youngest patriot of the Cuban army, a soldier 
just eleven years old, four feet tall, and weighing 
about eighty-five pounds. Calunga's men with 
hats and legs and machetes waving in the air were 
galloping across the savanna, when I found this tiny 
trooper at my side, full of carnage and flushed with 
the glory of being a real soldier. When the arroyo 
checked our charge, he pulled in his horse and 
sheathed his machete. Then he jerked a Reming- 
ton carbine that had dangled from a sling at his 
side, threatening to pull him from the saddle, into 
the hollow of his left arm, blew in the breech, 
poked in a cartridge, and carefully aimed and fired 
through the shifting smoke, with the conscious 
gravity of Jove hurling a thunderbolt. Several 
times afterwards I caught sight of him, always in 
the front, and thoroughly enjoying himselfT 

On the morning after the Spanish retreat, a dele- 
gation of Calunga's men waited on me, bringing 
their juvenile hero with them. I must sketch him 
and write his story for my paper, so that Americans 
should know that a young generation was ready to 
defend the Republic when the old one should fall. 
My letter was lost, and I have forgotten the little 
fellow's name; but here is his history as his cam- 
erades told it to me. 

We will call him Paco, for somehow that name 



Echoes of Saratoga 



219 



comes to me in connection with him. It seems 

that Paco lived with an uncle who was supposed 

to be loyal to Spain, on a 

farm just outside of the city 

of Puerto Principe. One 

afternoon some months 

back, a Spanish convoy 

had marched by on the 

road, and a hungry soldier 

slipped from the ranks to 

forage on his own account. 

The soldier spied a fat 

pullet and laid down his 

Mauser rifle in the tall 

grass so as to give chase 

with greater swiftness. 

Little Paco, who was 
hiding in a tool-house near 
by, saw the act and made 
his plan with the promp- 
titude of a veteran. He 
stole from the shed and 
hid the rifle under some 
old lumber, and then got 
out of the way as fast as 
his stocky little legs 
would carry him. 

The soldier danced 
and swore and called on the saints until the rear- 
guard was nearly out of sight ; then he remembered 
that Cuba was not a safe place for soldiers straying 
by themselves ; so he corralled a sucking pig from 
the sty as a peace-offering for his sergeant, and hur- 




' ' Paco. ' ' 



220 Marching with Gomez 

ried after the column. Paco said nothing about the 
affair to his uncle ; but as soon as it grew dark he 
shouldered the rifle and started out to find an insur- 
gent force in the forests that cover the foothills of 
the Sierra Najazes. 

It was a long tramp, and terribly still. When he 
turned from the high-road into the woods, the 
darkness became so intense that he lost his way. 
Boughs of trees struck him in the face, and cling- 
ing brambles tripped him and tore his flesh ; but he 
struggled on manfully, still hugging the ten-pound 
rifle. The moon rose and, tired out, he sank under 
a tree, where he spent the rest of the night. At 
dawn he got up stiff and hungry, but he limped 
along undaunted, still carrying the precious Mauser. 
The morning wore -on, and little Paco continued 
his search through the woods, breakfasting on ber- 
ries, for it was not yet the season of mangoes. 
At noon he heard the beating of hoofs and saw 
mounted men approaching through an opening in 
the forest. He didn't know whether they were 
insurgents or Spanish guerrilleros, so he hid in a 
thicket of wild pineapple, and, as they rode past, he 
gave them the Cuban challenge, " Alto ! Quien 
va ? " Then he caught a flash of a blue and white 
cockade, and knew that he was among friends. 
It was a party of Calunga's scouts who had left 
camp that morning. Paco was put on a horse 
before one of them and sent back, rifle and all, to 
camp, where he became a hero at once. He 
.wanted to be a soldier, and Calunga had not the 
heart to send him home ; so he gave him a carbine 
that was several pounds lighter than his Mauser, 



Echoes of Saratoga 



221 



and a horse, a machete, and a pouch of ammunition, 
and enrolled him as a regular armado of the troop. 

Paco was a bright-eyed, cheerful little fellow, and 
his comrades, although they did not allow him to 
do guard duty, said he would soon be as good a 
fighting man as any of them. 

But Paco was not the only infant waiting to step 
into the cavalry boots of the adult generation. That 
very afternoon Ramon Fonseca, the fighting Cama- 
guey colonel, brought his little son, a shade younger 
and smaller than Paco, to me, and I struggled to 
make a portrait of him too. Little Ramon Fonseca 
rode with his father's force like a grown-up man ; 
and he rode pretty well, as all Camaguey boys do. 
But his father did not allow him under gun-fire, al- 
ways leaving him in charge of the camp guard, so 
little Ramon was only a Cuban soldier in posse, after 
all. 




Sketching the smallest soldier. 



Chapter X 

The Itinerant Government 




W 



E were at sup- 
per one even- 
ing a few days 
after the Sara- 
toga fight, when a 
courier rode up, dis- 
mounted, and stood with 
head uncovered before 
Gomez' shelter tent. " I 
come from the Presi- 
dent," said he. " The 
Government is at San 
Andres, two. leagues 
from here, my general, and will remain there to- 
morrow." 

" Inform the President," said Gomez, looking up, 
" that I march at daybreak. I will send word by letter 
where I may be found." The courier, mounting, 
disappeared in the shadows, and we finished our 
supper in silence. 

In the early dawn Gomez' column turned west- 
ward. Then, parting from the commander-in-chief, 
I took to a forest path with a guide, heading for 
San Andres, at last to visit the civil head of the 



Firmin, the President's cook. 



The Itinerant Government 223 

Revolution. Suarez, whom Gomez had not suffered 
in his presence since he had relieved him of his com- 
mand, rode with us, silently, by himself, followed 
by his servant. Two hours later we dismounted 
before a deserted country house that Salvador Cis- 
neros Betancourt, Marquis of Santa Lucia, with his 
cabinet, had made a temporary seat of government. 

It was a comfortable house, with white stuccoed 
walls, large windows, caged in handsome iron grat- 
ings, and surrounded by broad, shady porches, and 
above all a pot-tiled roof, with tiny dormer windows 
showed that there was an attic floor. There were 
flowers in what had been a garden, — sturdy, high- 
colored flowers, that held their own against encroach- 
ing weeds. To the rear of the main entrance were 
sheds and stables and a cook-house, indicating that 
wealthy people had lived there in times of peace. 

Through the open front door one could look 
into a square hall, and out again by an opposite 
door to the glare of sun and the green of growing 
plants and hedges beyond. There were long plank 
tables within, and men in neat white suits were writ- 
ing busily on sheets of foolscap, or whispering to- 
gether in groups. There was a soft, cool blowing 
of a breeze between the open doors, that rustled 
among the papers, and whisked them about when 
not weighed down by pistols or drawn machetes or 
clay ink-bottles. 

Alfredo led off my horse, and I walked in with- 
out attracting any special attention. 

I introduced myself to a young man who looked 
like an aide or secretary, and requested him to pass 
my name to the President. 



224 Marching with Gomez 

There were two good-sized connecting rooms on 
either side of the hall. In one of these, to the rear 
of the house, the Marquis had his hammock swung 
between an upright beam of the partition wall where 
lathe and plaster were chipped away, and a bar of 
the window grating. Cisneros was chatting, when I 
was ushered in, with the Vice-President, General 
Maso, 1 who sat opposite in a hammock similarly 
hitched from the same beam to the bars of the only 
other window in the apartment. 

Cisneros was a large, elderly gentleman, very soft 
and gracious, with a flowing white beard. He 
seemed rather relaxed and weary. He had a long 

1 General Bartolome Maso, now president of the Cuban Republic, a man of sixty- 
years or more, is a native of Manzanillo, of ancient family, and formerly a man of 
wealth. At the outbreak of the revolution, Maso organized a rebel force near 
Santiago de Cuba, and maintained it, in spite of the pressure brought to bear upon 
him by the Autonomist leaders, and the efforts of Spanish troops to capture him. 
This force formed the nucleus of the "Liberating Army," and practically put the 
insurrection on its feet. Maso will go down in history as having done Cuba a great 
service, and he has sometimes been a little extravagantly called, by his friends, "The 
Father of the Cuban Revolution." Although not, perhaps, a man of unusual 
ability, Maso's very name is a synonym for honesty and patriotism. 

Neither Roloff, Portuando, nor Mendez Capote, were with the Government at 
the time of my visit. 

Santiago Canizares was Minister of the Interior, and I sketched him as he was 
writing a despatch at a portable table, with a steaming tin of coffee at his side. 
Severo Pina, member of a well-known family of Sancti Espiritu, was Minister of 
Finance, and my friend, Dr. Eusebio Hernandez, was, in Portuando' s absence, Act- 
ing Minister of Foreign Affairs. Rafael Manduley, a native of Bayamo, held the 
portfolio of War, in Roloff' s absence, and Jose Clemente Vivanco, a most pleasant 
and courteous young man, was Chancellor of the Cabinet Council. 




Signature of General Maso, now ( / 898) President of Cuba. 




tZ<4 /fa^-~. &T~~& /o~c *^r. /yr~?'r*i <&&? <z^4 &*-, 




£^£5 



President Cisneros at San Andres. 



226 Marching with Gomez 

life, like Gomez, to look back upon, but he lacked 
the latter's energy and unyielding will. 

He received me pleasantly and kindly, and we dis- 
cussed shop-worn topics till my special correspond- 
ent's note-book was complete. 

His views surprised me ; they were those one 
might expect of a New York Cuban. He spoke 
favorably of annexation, though in a non-committal 
way, giving the usual reasons, — the danger in a small 
republic of insufficient external and internal strength, 
the trade advantage of being part of a great nation, 
etc. 

He speculated on a possible confederation of the 
Antilles to include Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo, 
peoples of allied race. 

I have stated that no fighting Cuban I ever met 
favored annexation, nor have I seen a fighting 
Cuban who distrusted Cuba's ability to govern her- 
self peacefully. 

When I asked if he feared a race war when Cuba 
had gained her independence, his answer was abso- 
lutely borne out by my own experience of the Cuban 
negro. 

" No, decidedly no ! " he said. " Our negroes 
are far superior to the colored race of the United 
States. They are naturally peaceful and orderly, 
and they desire to be white, and like the whites. 
In the last war we left our families, our wives, and 
our daughters in the forests alone with them for 
weeks at a time, and never suffered outrage or 
annoyance at their hands. General Maceo has 
negro blood in him, and is the pride of us all. 
Our army has scores of gallant officers who are 



The Itinerant Government 227 

mulattoes. While the dark race of Cuba produces 
such men we have nothing to fear." 

Breakfast was announced in the hall as we talked. 
Some rice with beef stew and plantains was served 
in long tin platters, on the deal tables, from which 
official correspondence and records of secretaries had 
been removed. 

Cisneros found a chair and seated himself first 
where the board was nearest the door of his own 
apartment. The Vice-President and Cabinet found 
themselves chairs or empty boxes, and among them 
I sat as a guest. The younger aides, the tardy ones, 
and those who could find no room, having helped 
themselves from the dishes, leaned in the doorways 
or against the walls, plate and fork in hand. It was a 
general, off-hand mess such as I had sat down to with 
Lacret, and not more formal. There were perhaps 
twenty of us in all, and through the open door the 
asistentes and men of the President's escolta could 
be seen gathered beneath the sheds or messing in 
groups under trees and hedges. 

Firmin, the President's chief cook, a thin little 
brown man with a straggly beard and his hat 
on, arrived presently with a tin pot of steaming 
black coffee, and the staff clustered about him. He 
served Cisneros, and the ministers, and Vivanco the 
chancellor of the Cabinet Council, and then there was 
a rush, a pushing and jostling, as each of the juniors 
tried to thrust his cup or jicara under the nozzle of 
Firmin's pot. Firmin was hustled this side and 
that, expostulating mildly, and dealing out dribbles 
until all was gone. Then those who were crowded 
out and got none, went off with an air of disgust 



•228 



Marching with Gomez 



and rolled cigarettes for themselves, while Firmin 
sidled back to the kitchen. 

After breakfast, forks and spoons and plates were 
given to the asistentes to be washed, and books and 
papers were spread once more over the tables. 

Cisneros returned to his own room, and the Cabi- 
net divided itself among the remaining chambers, 
one of which served as the Department of War, 
another the Department of Finance, and a third the 
Department of Foreign Affairs. A few busy letter- 
copiers resumed scribbling in the main hall, and 
others took to their hammocks on the porches for 
a morning nap. 

The only excitement of the afternoon was the 
departure of a despatch bearer to one of the smaller 
towns, where he had means of entering and purchas- 
ing things through an arrangement with a corrupt 
Spanish colonel of the garrison. He could buy 
encargos and bring them back, and the young 
officers of the staff wrote their orders on little stray 
slips of paper. I wrote one that was typical of the 
rest. It read as follows : — 



4 pounds coffee. 
2 pounds sugar. 
4. bundles of cigars 
2 quarts rum. 
I pound chocolate. 



I gave the despatch bearer a gold piece to cover 
purchases, and proportional expense of corrupting 
the Spanish colonel, and that was the last I saw of 



The Itinerant Government 



229 



despatch bearer, or encargo, though I learned that 
they arrived safely two weeks later. 

Next morning quite late, after breakfast, the 
Government bundled up its papers and records and 
marched to Najaza, some six or eight miles away, 
where I had camped twice with Gomez. 

The order of march was military enough. An ad- 
vance guard, thirty of the eighty armed men of the 




satin** 

The Government impedimenta on the march. 

escolta, the President, Cabinet and staff, the impedi- 
menta and the main body of the escolta. The im- 
pedimenta was numerous enough for a far larger force, 
sixty men or more, and mules laden with chairs, 
tables, writing-desks, great boxes of plantains, and 
cheeses, and little bundles of coffee and sugar, and 
cans of milk, these last items all in the province of 
Pedro Betancourt, 1 a fat, middle-aged officer, a cousin 
of Cisneros, who was a sort of commissary general. 

The march was slow, and we halted once in a 
mango grove to rest and gather fruit. Cisneros 

1 Not the Cabecilla Pedro Betancourt operating in Havana Province. 



230 Marching with Gomez 

looked well in the saddle ; he sat erect ; his asis- 
tentes kept his bridle, stirrups, and equipments in 
good condition ; he was genial and mild, seeming 
to absorb the sunshine as old men do. 

But on the walls of houses that Spanish columns 
had passed without burning, on trees where Spanish 
machete blades had chipped off bark to give room 
for pencil writing, promises of nameless tortures for 
" El Marques de Santa Lucia " were mingled with 
obscene threats of vengeance on Cuban women. 
The Marquis was the scapegoat whom the troops 
longed to capture. 

Yet somehow no natural anxiety was apparent on 
the part of those scribblers to make close acquaint- 
ance with the great war chief, and Gomez' name did 
not appear in the legends. 

The Government camped among the groves of 
Ceiba, palm and mango that drape the slopes of the 
Sierra Najaza to the Najaza river. Trees with 
abundant foliage to shelter tents and hammocks, 
good grass, plenty of water, and plenty of cattle 
roaming at large, made it an ideal camping ground. 
It was an historic spot, the place where the provin- 
cial delegates first met to adopt the present consti- 
tution and elect a Government ; and long ago, even 
before the last war, it was the scene of a great battle 
for Cuban independence. 

Here the ministers messed by themselves, and 
when darkness closed in, flames of many fires 
gleamed among the trees, lighting the canopy of 
leaves above. 

Five days the Government remained at Najaza, 



The Itinerant Government 



231 



sometimes moving a mile or less away from camp 
offal to fresher ground. Then came news that 
Gomez was at San Andres; and I hastened, with an 
officer who knew the way, to join him. 

All the following day — it was, I think, June 
twentieth — the Government lingered at Najaza, wait- 
ing for Gomez, and Gomez at 
San Andres waiting for the Gov- 
ernment. Cisneros 1 gave in first, 
and that night word came that 
he would arrive in the morning. 

There was bustle and stir in 
our camp when day broke on the 
twenty-first. The 
house that had served 
as a Capitol when I 
joined the Govern- 
ment, a week before, 
was decorated by Go- 
mez' orders, inside, 
with palm leaves, 
branches of flowers, 
and Cuban flags 
draped on its bare • 
walls. It was also 
carefully swept, which 

it had not been before. It was prepared for guests, 
and the meeting was made to be a visit from Cis- 
neros to Gomez. 

By noon the Government was reported near, and 
Gomez rode from his headquarters, a stone's throw 




The A cting Minister of War. 



1 According to camp gossip, Cisneros was reported to have said, "One cannot 
oppose Maximo ; he must always have his own way." 



232 



Marching with Gomez 



from the house, on the bend of the Najaza river, 
followed by his staff, and Gomez and Cisneros met 
— their first meeting since the invasion — with an 
embrace, and the officers of both fell in together 




The Minister of the Interior. 



behind them. The President was escorted to Gomez' 
camp, where a breakfast was prepared by Moron, in 
his honor, to which Vice-President Maso, Dr. Her- 
nandez, and the secretaries sat down. Thus the 
mountain came to Mahomet. 

On the following day Gomez moved to a place 



The Itinerant Government 



133 



five minutes' trot from the Presidency, where a for- 
est bordered the high-road. His command spread 
by troops along the banks of the river, and all day 
long the little stream was filled with men, black and 
white, swimming and splashing and shouting like 
schoolboys. It was a holiday after the alarms and 
long marches of the 
spring campaign. 

The two encamp- 
ments were distinct, 
and offered a strik- 
ing contrast. The 
troopers of the 
President's escort 
had the insolence of 
men untamed by 
hard fighting, and 
looked as if some 
" planazos " all 
around would do 
them good — they 
needed an iron hand 
sadly. In one of my 
visits among them 
my bridle was stolen, 
and on the same 
day an expeditionary laid his rifle against a tree near 
the seat of government, turned his back for a mo- 
ment, and found it gone. Another expeditionary 
was slyly relieved of his blanket. Such things did 
not occur in Gomez' camp. 

There were a number of lusty young aides with 
the Government, occupying positions one would 




The Minister of Finance. 



234 



Marching with Gomez 



expect to find filled only by rheumatic veterans. 
Perhaps it was on that account that, as I mounted 
once to ride to the Presidency, an aide of Gomez' 
asked me if I was going to the "Majaceria" (i.e., 
to visit the majaces). 

These incidents, slight as they were, made one 
wonder where the revolution, then a year old, would 
have found itself, if, as in the Ten Years' War, the 
conduct of military affairs had rested in the Civil 
Government, — if there had been no Gomez. 




Gomez' headquarters at La Yaya. 

After two days at San Andres, the Government 
moved with Gomez to La Yaya, where the Presi- 
dent made a little " dobe " bungalow his head- 
quarters, and the commander-in-chief pitched his 
tienda some distance up the road, under a guasima 
tree. 

There was a return of hospitality on the part of 
the Government. , Gomez was invited to dine on 
the porch, and Firmin prepared a banquet, with the 
usual bill of fare, and as a luxury, some hard bread 
brought a long distance from the town of Cascorro. 



The Itinerant Government 



ns 



Cisneros' usual dinner-time arrived, but Gomez 
did not appear. Firmin grew nervous. The chopped 
beef and rice and sweet-potatoes and plantains were 
ready, and Firmin ran to and from the cook-house, 
looking anxiously 
up the road for 
an approaching 
cavalcade. 

An hour or 
more later, at his 
usual supper-time, 
Gomez came from 
under his bit of 
canvas and rode 
to the Presidency 
withColete. Then 
the great ban- 
quet took place, 
and after it 
there was a con- 
ference prolonged 
far into the night. 

So ended a se- 
ries of trifling cir- 
cumstances that, 

when reported abroad, were exaggerated by some 
to open friction between Gomez and the Govern- 
ment, and flatly denied by others, according to 
personal interest. I certainly witnessed stretches 
of prerogative by the Government, as the licensing 
of the old peddler arrested near Consuegra, and the 
issuing to personal friends of irregular military com- 
missions. Perhaps the Government had inflated 




Dr. Eusebio Hernandez, A cting Minister of For- 
eign Affairs. 



236 Marching with Gomez 

itself in the security that it enjoyed, forgetting that 
this security was due solely to Gomez' invasion of 
the Western Provinces, which had diverted Spain's 
attention from Camaguey ; possibly it had put on 
airs with the old general. At any rate, whatever 
differences had arisen between the military and civil 
heads were finally settled by the conferences at San 
Andres and La Yaya. 

Note. — I had the unusual experience at San Andres and La Yaya, of meeting 
a dozen of my countrymen, useless to a man, filibusters of the Ruz expedition. Not 
one of these, to my knowledge, developed any inclination to "rough it" or fight, 
and two, Quin and McNally, succeeded in presenting themselves at the town of San 
Miguel and were forwarded home to "inform " against some members of the Cuban 
delegation in New York. Besides this bevy of tawdry adventurers, I met few 
Americans in the Cuban field ; but constant reports came to me of the gallantry of 
two men, Mr. W. D. Osgood (well known in collegiate circles as a distinguished 
athlete) and Mr. Chappelot, formerly member of a Massachusetts militia regiment. 
Both Mr. Osgood and Mr. Chappelot had attracted attention at the siege of Sagua 
de Guantanamo, by Rabi, where, under hottest gun-fire (at ridiculously short range) 
from a Spanish fort, they advanced by themselves from cover, entered the wooden 
storehouse adjacent to the fort wherein the supplies were kept, set fire to it and re- 
turned unscathed. Mr. Osgood received an honorably earned commission from 
Gomez as Major of Artillery, and fell later while sighting his field-piece. His last 
words were, " Well, well ! " and he died almost instantly, pierced through the brain. 



Chapter XI 
Cuba Libre 

THE Cuba Libre through which the Civil 
Government has ramified without hin- 
drance, lies eastward of the Jucaro-Moron 
trocha. It comprises the provinces of Pu- 
erto Principe (Camaguey) and Santiago de Cuba 
(Oriente) ; a good half of the Island, where Spanish 
troops have practically no liberty of movement, but 
remain cooped up in the larger towns. These out- 
posts of trade, long since commercially defunct, are 
scattered few and far between, along the coast, and 
in the virgin forests of the interior. The moun- 
tainous, timber-covered country hereabout forms a 
complete contrast to the flatter provinces of Havana, 
Matanzas, and Las Villas, where the extreme produc- 
tivity of the canefields has centred the population,, 
Into this comparative wilderness 1 of Cuba Libre, the 
soldiers seldom venture, 2 and forays like the move- 

1 "The uncleared forests of Cuba comprise 13,000,000 acres abounding in 
mahogany, ebony, cedar, granadillo, sabicu, and other valuable woods." (Lieutenant 
A. S. Rowan, U.S.A.) 

2 The only Spanish military operations seem to be the forwarding of weekly 
convoys, under heavy guards, to Bayamo, Jiguani, Holguin, and Victoria de las 
Tunas, all interior towns, still garrisoned by Spain. These convoys consist of 
stores of ammunition, clothing, and "air-tights," as A. H. Lewis' old cattleman 
terms canned provisions. According to recent accounts, nearly every other convoy 
is captured, and the supplies thus gained greatly comfort the local insurgent forces. 

237 



238 Marching with Gomez 

ment of Castellanos against Gomez at Saratoga are 
unusual. 

The Spaniards did not take the revolution very 
seriously at first, thinking it would confine itself to 
its old stamping-ground in the East, where they 
could crush it out at their convenience ; but before 
they knew it, Gomez and Maceo were at the gates 
of Havana. Therefore Martinez Campos, and later 
Weyler, concerned themselves with pacifying the 
country nearest at hand. The elaborate trocha 
policy, the guarding of the railroads, the garrisoning 
of important towns in the middle provinces, and 
local operations kept busy all the soldiers Spain 
could spare. The East was left pretty much to itself. 

The late Jose Marti, 1 the agitator and father of 
this war, said as early as 1884, "If we can sustain 
the revolution six months, we can count on Spanish 
mistakes to do the rest." 

The inhabitants of Cuba Libre address each other 
as " Ciudadano (Citizen)." They already feel them- 
selves citizens of a republic, and in addressing stran- 
gers and people of consequence, Ciudadano has 
replaced Senor. In this country many homesteads 

1 Marti devoted his life to the cause of Cuban independence and for its sake 
wore chains as a mere boy, in Spanish prisons. He was a voluminous writer, a fervent 
orator, and a man with a genius at organization. He gathered the scattered Cuban 
emigrants into a compact body, by organizing revolutionary clubs, and strove to arouse 
their patriotism through revolutionary newspapers. Cuban cigarmakers, in Tampa, 
Key West, and in every large city of the East, paid regular contributions to the 
juntas organized by Marti with unwavering faithfulness, and in the Island, veterans 
of the Ten Years' War awaited his call to arms. The call came on February 
24th, 1895, ar >d was responded to at once by Maso, Moncado, and others. Antonio 
Maceo and his brother Jose landed near Baracoa on March 31, and Gomez, with 
Marti himself, landed, after danger and delays of voyage, on April II, near Baracoa 
also. On May 19th, 1895, Marti fell at Dos Bocas, Oriente, under an unexpected 
voiley from the advance guard of a Spanish column ; but his work was accomplished j 
for the revolution was already under way. 



Cuba Libre 239 

are deserted, for the families who owned them — 
fearing the lawlessness of Spanish soldiers in the 
field — fled to the towns at the beginning of the 
present insurrection : their doors stand open, and 
tall flowers bloom against the chalk-white walls. 
Country houses of the rich are vacant too, and their 
pretentious iron gates are red with rust and half 
hidden in weeds and grass. Sometimes fire has 
visited these dwellings, but for the most part they 
have been spared. 

Take it all in all, these two provinces of Cama- 
guey and Oriente are peaceful. The small farms 
are fruitful and undisturbed. Smoke does not tinge 
the brilliant blueness of the tropical sky. The 
peasants live in their clearings on the mountain 
trails as if there were no such thing as war, making 
their cheese and honey, — a contrast to the starving, 
homeless refugees of the Western provinces. 

As for travelling, the country is safe as it never 
was under the old rule ; for the insurgents, as I wrote 
in another chapter, have systematically suppressed 
outlaws of every description. The prefects are in 
full sway, each in his district, under surveillance of 
rhe civil governors and lieutenant-governors, and 
in Oriente there are actually schools for the children. 
To these public schools each citizen is required by 
law to send his children, despite any notion he may 
have of his own for their private instruction. 

I have before me a little blue-covered pamphlet, 
the very first primer of Free Cuba. It was written 
by order of the Government by Daniel F. Ortiz, a 
brother of the Cuban political writer, M. Desiderio 
Fajardo Ortiz, of New York City. It reminds one 



(Vba p aira 

con-tra a-mo 

!i-ber-tad £-jer-ci-to 

Mi pa-pa es-ta en las fi-las 

del ^-jer-ci-to Zi-ber-ta-dor. E\ 

pe-lea con-tra ^s-pa-Aa pa-ra ver 
a £u-ba Ji-bre. Vo a-mo la li 
ber-tad. 

mu-chas es-tan 

a-ta-can cu-ba-nos 

o-yen-do e-ne-mi-go 

Se es-t£n o-yen-do mu-chas 

des-car-gas y ti-ros de ca-ndn. 
£on los cu-ba-nos que a-ta-can al 
e-ne-mi-go. La vic-to-ria se-ra 
nues-tra. /'Pi-va Cu-ba; 

A page of Ortiz' first Cuban primer. 



Cuba Libre 241 

of the old New England Primer, and the simplicity 
of Benjamin Franklin's Almanack. 

The little book begins with an alphabet, the 
vowels, and the simple exercises in the spelling of 
words of one and two syllables. These are followed 
by exercises in reading, which tell the story of the 
Cuban War, and show how the children are edu- 
cated up to live under a free government. Thev 
are simple little exercises, as follows : — 

" My pa-pa is in the ranks of the lib-er-at-ing 
army. He fights against Spain to see Cuba free. 
I love liberty." 

" Many vol-leys and shots of cannon are heard. 
It is the Cubans, who are at-tack-ing the enemy. 
Vic-to-ry shall be ours. Long live Cuba ! " 

" The prefect furnishes supplies so that there will 
never be lack of food for the army. What a lot of 
corn ! Look, there is a fine melon patch." 

" Ca-chi-ta is washing the clothes of her cousin, 
who is a cor-po-ral. She has an uncle, who is a 
cap-tain. The coun-try must be de-fend-ed. I am 
going to be a soldier." 

The primer provides for the swift intellectual ad- 
vance of its readers. A, few pages bring the pupil 
to stiffer and more complicated examples of Castil- 
ian prose. The child is introduced to the harder 
words in advance, so that he may get his bearings 
and sail ahead with confidence. For example : — 

Rear-guard Reg-i-ment 

Cav-al-ry Im-ped-i-ment-a 

" What a lot of cavalry ! It is a Cuban regiment. 
Look ! there is the general's escort. The impedi- 



242 Marching with Gomez 

menta goes in the centre, and there are forty troopers 
for the rear-guard. The flag of Cuba is blue, white, 
and red." 

When the pupil is able to read the above exercise, 
he is prepared to dig deeper into literature, as : — 

" Let us go to the camp and you will see how 
many soldiers there are. There is a sergeant with 
an advance guard to give warning when the enemy 
approaches with volleys of shot. Peter is acting as 
sentinel." 

" The people are going to the coast. An expedi- 
tion has arrived, and they are going to receive the 
supplies. The Cubans abroad are sending many 
arms. From Key West they have sent a big can- 
non. Long live free Cuba ! " 

" John and Peter are very good friends. They 
come home together from school and they never 
quarrel. They are picking mangoes for them- 
selves and their little sisters. How delicious are 
the mangoes ! In Cuba there are many delicious 
fruits." 

To complete the work, there is a study in nu- 
merals, an explanation of all the simpler terms of 
geography, and a topographical study of Cuba, with 
a list of its principal cities and the provinces into 
which the Provisional Government has divided it. 1 



1 Journalism flourishes in Cuba Libre, manifesting itself in little pink or green 
bi-weekly and monthly newspapers that one finds everywhere in the field. 

There are four in all, the largest of which, El Cubano Libre, I reproduce (one- 
third actual size) on page 243. They are struck off in editions of a hundred or 
so by secret presses in the forests or mountain fastnesses of Camaguey and Oriente, 
Las Villas and Pinar del Rio. They contain news of successful engagements and 
Spanish losses, letters of encouragement from New York Cubans, and Government 
edicts. 

It is tardy news brought to the editors by courier, laboriously printed on paper 



-Rop^blica do Cuba, 10 da Mayo d* 1096. 



CUBAIO 



-E3I 




LIBRE. 



: PATEIA "5T LIBERTAD." 



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a.:« "s-iWnwre 27. 



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Alv.r,,C„li.l„.ll,..r. 
'|>., IV n ..n.!o KM,-«K U.An<W. S'.i )i u «,r. 

!■, I, .. I).,.. ■■.■.,.•. .'... I'. .'. i 

i B i :.. M.,v.„„. c„i... RuloU? CutO* 
v..,.ta.« J, JW.m»«: U...1-1 I'.j.rJ., 0,'iu. 



Cod cUontzfio. 

La Revufncit'n. quo no pudo.Vner 
coiV.o sudario no Jsaclo infame que »o 

'acusara nunca detubardfa a los horn- 
hirfe que supicron defender iiuestros 
dcrechos/tuvo aj'ostolcs y rhartires 

'en los trisics dfas de pa? en loi que 

{•arecfa que los cubanos olvidaban al 
iido del espr.nel la infamrja que ccmo 
s- mora drgradantc y x II {nbriael sol 
hcr-uosu dc nuestraa libeiaades. 

■ Entrc esfus hoinbrcs que'" supicron 
luchar y supicron xenjurar todos los 
cusia'culos y <i.-.r !a vbf de alarms, es 
el prmero y el mis prande aquel que 
Hipo murir en ■ I **# Ufos" y desnftar 
cojtio guerre ro lii iras clc la sc-'.da- 
•desca" cspaflola, " despues dc baber 
■vencido con su propaganda heurada 
j- patriotica los temores de los unos y 
las amhiciones dc los que se llama 
kan cuhanos para alargar la vidn <lc 
esclavilud que les daba honores'y ri- 
ngc*as a\ caririKoru*. 1° |»t*rj vcridi- 
4a. 

rem no efttatw solo Marlf: enlre 
To* que con el luvharon noinan pues- 
tbs* honrosos mucho* Itombres que 
fueray ccniro dc la Patria coiuinuan 
eu i>bra rcdentora. 

La guerra lienc su Jc-fe en r] mas 
prestigioso: en el anciano G6mex.— 
que es para todos el primero entre 
los soldados dc Cuba y una dc los m.v 
1,'isuados que ha dc poncr la patria al 



f rente dc 



Re vol u 



stmoscidia ya proxi- 
estra indtpcidnicia. Klcsla 
onyelcselj^iodenuestra 
-uerra: porcso el pucbf) lo aclama y 
pof cso'nuestra cwiistitijcii^n le da el 
puesto que nierect; el nua alio y :am- 
bien H mas dificil. U^ One.itc ha 
ido a caballu k Occider^u v fuerie y 
valeroso es cl r^ucrrcro n;as"digno de 
los laurelcs en los coirl.'ater,: y alia 
esUi-cn su puesto crsuido sobrc los 
csiribos dcs.iiiando a la soldados es- 
panolc«. Viven a su lado los valien- 
tes ^■ s<S!o puedon discjjtJr.siia virlu- 

CIt*sPTSTo"'Ja:oci * " <lpniio'i*-w q« 

De UccidcnU! virne aliora aesias 1 
ticrras elidondc Ics hermanos Maceo 
con sus hrroismos lian satiMo demos* 
lr;.r sus indiscuiibl**s mcritos y sus al- 
ias- virtudes patri6ticas, vfene Avisi 
larnos. como delrgado del [lustre Ma- 
yor Corner, -el General Serafin San- 
chez a quicn ha confiado la organiza- 
ci6n de nuestro Ejeicito. 

Nacen pocos hondircs tan puros y 
tan leales como <:i General Sincher: 
en mi alma Aclo hay .grandew. y ge- 
nTOSKLd: po-«?so puede represriHar 
diffnamentti a! Ccncril en jefe 

Modesto poi'o ir:\ero trabaj<5 Sera- 
fin z\\i en Cayo Hueso per la Kevo.- 
lucion v estuvo sirmpre al lado de 
Marti, 'cuando no U.6 quien lo creyc- 
ra visionario y quicn se alrevicr'a a 
querer lanzar quijotcscos veredicto* 
contra el m.is honrado de nuestros 
mirtircs y el mds humilde de nyes- 
Iros hombrcs valerosos. "• 

Como el ap6itul de n.iestra" honra, 
ccing Estrada IVdrria mas mtrecedor 
cada,dla.del rcspeRrde t<?ao<; V farta- 
d(a mas digno del pu.cstu de conftan- 
za que 1c senalo nuestra Asamblea 
Cons:ituventc;>— \& hoy *.l General 
Sanchc? como crece la obra del ge« 
nio, como todos vtencn A compa,rtir 
enn cl loldado de Mart! y Gomez y 
Maceo las glorias y los trabajos y con 
cufnta rapideinos- acercamos al te'r- 
mino de nucstros anh»;los. 

Marti no ha mucno para Cuba 



mwnlRu viva el General Sancbez y 

los que cod Cl supicron CCPiyOr la tu- 
tela degradante y levantar c'^.no hom- 
bres uucitra bundetu libcrtadori. 



Uevc el noble ami^o la ^rianiaciou 
mas aiomsra de todns lo» orienules al 
General Ci6mez: eon < : 1 estr.njos todos 
para veneer y a su lado estaremos 
sivtmprc para honrarlo. 

Caerd ante los heroismosde nues- 
tros soldados la dominacion que dc- 
sesperada y makreeha sc rcvuelve en 
aif^iaJa ccueL perp merccid; 
- \ cl" dia de la .Victoria - Paxria*, 
escribiri d'is nomb-es en Ja bandeia 
de la Revolucion. el nonibre de Mar- 
u': el maitir— > el uombie d*. G6mez 
cl libertador. 

ValJi* Vontlunxft. 
Or*«ute, Muy»5j t - I5U0. 



Enirtvisfa dtl Su*t con il ifustre sol- 
dado y Ex-Minisho Pltnipottn- 

"Th Shu" de Nueva %'!**, noble 
\ deniu:ercsado campeon de toda cau 
sa justacomo lade Cuba, no 96I0 em- 
plea en dcfenderlss la profunda eru- 
dition de su Director, sino que busca 
para sus columnas las m£s autoriza- 
das opiniones del pai«, como ion en- 
ire otras las palahras del bravo mili- 
tar e intcgcrrimo^clitico Mayor Ge- 
neral Daniel E. Sickles. 

La scgunda pagini de «u numero 
de 2 de Abril pr!6ximoL»' , tad^, trae la 
tr.ijj>»iiiMi* entrevlsU de uno de sus 
reporters C"n *l veterans ;'c h cuerra 
de seseci6n v oc-Min:s?m ntfrripe- 
tenciario y f!n\iado Extraordinario 
de los Estados L'nidos en Espafls 
Ese documento, tan notable per el 
fondo como por la' forma sencilla y 
elefrante. es la expresion mis aha de 
la opinion poUtica y militar del lije'r- 
ciio eaiericano, acerci de lo* suc^sos 



244 Marching with Gomez 

The "talleres," or Government workshops of 
Cuba Libre, furnish the army to the best of their 
ability with clothing and equipments ; and in some of 
them firearms and machetes are repaired. For the 
sake of security, only prefects or sub-prefects of the 
districts are supposed to know their exact situation. 
The workmen, however, are prepared for emer- 
gencies, and in case of alarm the tools could be 
carried away at a moment's notice ; while the build- 
ing of new sheds to cover them would be an easy 
matter. The foremen of these " talleres " are always 
appointees of the Civil Government, and the work- 
men are drawn from the insurgents who are physi- 
cally disqualified for active service. 

Hides are plentiful in the Eastern provinces, so 
the manufacture of leather belts, ammunition pouches, 
officers' despatch boxes, halters, and shoes, are a 
specialty. As fast as equipments are made, they 
are turned over to the prefect of the districts for 
distribution among the forces. 

There are shoe shops in Camaguey, and I visited 
several of them ; in each of which six to a dozen 
men work together, with their families about them. 
Hides are sent to them from other " talleres," where 

varying in tint and texture according to circumstances, and smuggled from the nearest 
Spanish town. 

Copies are forwarded from one end of the Island to the other by post riders and 
travelling commissions, passing from hand to hand, from saddle-bag to saddle- bag, 
until they become crumpled, blurred, and soiled, but never tco old to be read and 
discussed over the camp-fire. Sometimes they stray into the towns, and a family is 
sent to prison for having one in its possession. 

Only editors and compositors are allowed to know exactly where these presses 
lie hidden, because they could not easily be carried away if an attempt were made to 
capture them. The presses themselves are ancient affairs. El Boktin de la Gucrra 
was for a long time printed with a machine that served as a cheese-press when regular 
editions of the paper and general orders were not under way. 







Specimens of Mambi workmanship issued to me in Camaguey. 
Page 244. 




The publishing office of El Boletin de la Guerra, in Camaguey. 
(See note, pp. 242, 244. ) 



246 



Marching with Gomez 



the tanning is done, and their supplies come regu- 
larly to them from the nearest prefectura. 

There is an air of secrecy about these little shoe 
shops, and out of compliment to your hosts you 
must look profound and mysterious. You hide 
your horse and tread stealthily through the bushes, 
by blind, perplexed paths, crossed by fallen trees 
that you climb over with difficulty. I have sus- 
pected that I was being led by " show " paths to 






^ N 



' 




A saddle shop, near Najaza Mountain, Camaguey. 

these nooks, " known only to members of the 
fraternity," and that there were other entrances, 
" family entrances," smooth, grassy, and above board. 
You pardon the little fiction of secrecy when 
you see the work of these Mambi shoe-makers. 
They make stout cowhide boots fastening with 
straps, that will see you through a hard campaign, 
and are fairly comfortable when once broken in. 
For the rank and file there are low shoes that fasten 
with a thong. Grease them well and walk about in 



Cuba Libre 



247 



the dewy grass for several evenings, and they take 
the exact form of your feet and fit like a stocking. 
The material is stout and the sewing an honest, old- 
fashioned stitch — strong and reliable. The largest 
shoe shop is said to be Gibara in Oriente, where 
thirty workmen sit side by side stitching and cutting. 

Saddle-making has come to be an art in these 
forests. The army McClellan tree is taken as a 
model and perfectly duplicated in light cedar, cov- 
ered with sheepskin. Brass trimmings and rings are 
cut in the gun-shops on the pattern of those used in 
our army. The result is a neat, light McClellan, 
with no flaps, properly fitted with pommel and 
cantle rings, lacking only the Mexican cinch and 
lastigo to be perfect for business or exercise. When 
you consider that the Mambi carries no other 
pack than his hammock and a blanket, or water- 
proof, the lightness of this saddle makes it superior 
to our own regulation McClellan. 

In other " talleres " broad-brimmed straw hats — 
each one of them two days' work for one man — 
are turned out, together with thick straw " suda- 
deros," or saddle packs. A blanket is too precious 
to put under your saddle, and straw is soft and 
cool. 

Ropes are woven from strips of the inner bark of 
the " mahagna." They are stout as the best of 
hemp, and serve to "lariat" horses at night, when 
they graze on the savannas. The peasants' art of 
making candles from beeswax, with twisted strips 
of linen for wicks, comes into requisition, and there 
are " talleres," too, where balls of beef fat and the 
ash of the " guasima " wood are rolled by hand into 



2 4 8 



Marching with Gomez 



balls of black soap and tied for transportation in 
strips of palm bark. 

These supplies are invaluable to the forces, and 
it is a day of rejoicing in camp when a convoy comes 
in from the prefecturas ; a great rolling, squeaking 
two-wheeled cart, drawn by six oxen, loaded high 
with saddles, sudaderos, halters, belts, shoes, hats 
tied in dozens together, lariats, stirrups, and bundles 
of drill clothing. Then the barefooted men, the 
men without shirts or trousers, the hatless, and 
those whose horses have the sorest backs, assemble 




"A rolling, squeaking two-wheeled cart." 

in expectant line and continue to clamor until the 
last equipments are distributed. 

The clothing (coats and trousers) is made from 
drill bought in the villages by Government agents. 
The tailoring is done by the peasant women, under 
direction of the local prefects. It comes ready 
made to camp, and is portioned out, with other sup- 
plies, to the needy rather than to those whom it fits. 

There are even regions in Las Villas where the 
inaccessible nature of the country offers security to 
Government " talleres." In the safest of these 
regions, fifteen miles east of Cienfuegos, away up in 



Cuba Libre 249 

the Sighuanea Mountains, is the Mayari arsenal, 
largest of all the Cuban workshops. 1 

From the plain below, the Sighuanea range rises 
in abrupt steps, peak after peak, until the Mayari 
is reached ; highest of all, and buried morning and 
night in banks of mist. It is a stiff climb for man 
or beast, up twisting, rugged paths grown with cac- 
tus and wild coffee ; down steep declivities with 
dizzy glimpses of chasms below, then up again 
almost to the perpendicular, through rifts of clouds, 
till your head swims and your knees grow weak be- 
neath you. 

If you try it on horseback, you must dismount 
and scramble up most of the way, holding tight to 
your horse's tail ; and you are pretty likely to lame 
your mount, if it is unused to the ascent, hopelessly. 

When you have nearly reached the summit you 
squeeze through a cleft between two boulders, 
strongly fortified from above ; then by a circular 
path you wind into a hollow directly under the peak 
of the mountain. 

Once on a level, you find yourself before a turn- 
stile and swinging gate bearing the legend : — 

Taller Mayari Fundado Deciembre 20, 1895. 

Directly in front of you is the main building ; a 
long, open structure, with a palm-thatched roof 
supported by light cedar pillars. 

About the main building is a neatly terraced little 

1 Near Remedios in Las Villas there is also a large "taller" — a saddle shop. 
The peculiarity or" the last establishment is that the tools used there were carried out 
by a column of Spanish soldiers and hidden in the woods, where they were promptly 
gathered by a party of insurgents sent to get them. 



250 



Marching with Gomez 



garden for onions, sweet-potatoes, radishes, garlic, 
and lettuce. Horses and mules are not allowed 
within the gate, but must be unloaded and tied 
without a long fence that encloses the garden 
and grounds of the establishment. There is a 
big furnace near the entrance, where charcoal is 
made for use in the blacksmith's 
shop, and a spring of fresh, clear 
water that gushes into a basin, and 
runs off through a trench, irrigating 
the garden. 

Within the 



main building 
are work-tables 
and benches in 
rows, with racks 
for tools and arms in 
ft course of repair. Fifty 
men are employed in 
cleaning and repairing 
carbines, pistols, and machetes. 
They are well supplied with 
screws, rivets, and the minute 
machinery of firearms. There is a furnace with a 
bellows, and tanks for bronzing long arms and even 
cannon. 

An old carbine that has seen hard service may be 
brought here and fitted with bands, screws, and 
breech-block, freshly bronzed and stocked, and sent 
back to the owner nearly as good as new. Gun- 
stocks are turned out by hand in the wood-carving 
department, of beautiful red and yellow woods, each 
stamped with the initials "P. y L.," standing for 




Finishing a machete handle. 



Cuba Libre 251 

" Patria y Libertad ( Fatherland and Liberty )." 
They are as true as if turned by lathe, and finely 
polished ; for everything done at Mayari, so far as 
it goes, is well done. 

The lower end of the hall is devoted to the repair- 
ing of machetes. Handles of beautitul design are 
made and harmoniously fitted to the various styles 
of machete, from the long, pointed Camaguey blade, 
to the broad forester's cutlass and Santo Domingo 
scimitar. The handles are made from layers of 
ox horn, heated and shaped with brass forms, and 
pressed over night in a vise. They are then clinched 
with brass rivets, trimmed with knife and file and 
polished to their utmost brilliancy. 

You may have your machete fitted with a guard of 
brass or steel if you wish, and may select your design 
for a handle, or leave it to the taste of the artisan. 
Care is taken in the selection of horn, and the 
results are creditable to the taste and patience of the 
workmen. 

Henrique Gomez, a dark, thick-set little man, a 
saddler by profession and an all-around mechanic, 
is overseer and foreman of the arsenal. He has 
brought his wife with him to the mountain, for the 
Spaniards burned her out of house and home a few 
months ago. They live in a little rancho on the 
mountain side. She is the only woman on Mayari. 

Industry is the order of the day at Mayari. 
When work in the armory is slack, the men devote 
themselves to labor in the garden and to improve- 
ments about the grounds. In the wood-carving 
department extra time goes to the manufacture of 
boxes, inlaid checker-boards, and card-tables. The 



252 Marching with Gomez 

pride of the entire shop is a great escutcheon of the 
Cuban Republic, four feet high, carved from a solid 
root of the yellow " foutete," in relief. It took 
Sanchez, the master-carver, a skilful workman who 
learned his trade in the United States, three months 
to do it, working at odd moments. 

Every arm that comes to the workshop is turned 
over to a receiving clerk, who sits caged in a little 
office by the entrance. A ticket with the date and 
number is given in receipt, and a duplicate is 
attached to the weapon. Behind the receiving 
clerk, in a long rack, are the arms waiting to be 
sent for, and you are reminded of a down-town 
pawnbroker's shop. 

The only outsider who comes to Mayari is the 
sub-prefect of the district. He makes two trips a 
week, with beef killed at the base of the mountain. 
Arms are therefore sent to the prefectura on the 
plain below, with instructions for their repair, and 
the owner must wait till they are finished. This is 
a precaution for the safety of the establishment. 

It is always cold at Mayari, especially -at night, 
for the wind is piercing and the mist envelops one 
with chilling dampness. The officers sleep in a 
little house on cot beds, but the men have their 
barracks in a great cavern, like a bandit's lair, under 
the overhang of the mountain. Here they swing 
their hammocks from iron rings cemented in the 
ceiling of solid rock. In the centre of the cave, in 
a great fireplace where the cooking is done, a cal- 
dron of boiling coffee stands night and day ; for 
coffee grows wild on Mayari, and the members of 
the garrison drink it when the air is chill. 



Cuba Libre 253 

So much for the industries of Cuba Libre. In 
Matanzas and Havana and western Las Villas the 
Mambis has no " talleres " to draw from, and he 
must renovate his costume as best he can. The 
pacifico was the insurgents' quartermaster in those 
provinces. 

I have often seen a neat, well-fed pacifico, with a 
good hat, good trousers, a clean shirt and service- 
able shoes come out smiling to meet a ragged 
column of insurgents. The first man of the ad- 
vance guard claps him on the back and cheerfully 
changes hats ; the second borrows his shirt, while 
the third negotiates for his shoes or trousers. If he 
demurs, he is called an unpatriotic, scoundrelly 
" Gringo," and sent home in the simple gunny sack 
costume of the militant Mambi. Horses are ac- 
quired in the same way; for, like everything useful 
in the war, they are regarded as Government prop- 
erty. In fact, the best horse I have ridden I 
exchanged for a jaded ruin of my own with a well- 
mounted pacifico. 




Chapter XII 
The Sub-prefectura Yatal 




■ftySfc 



IT was the usual hut of the Camaguey herdsman, 
rectangular in outline, heavily overtopped by 
its shaggy brown thatch, as a grenadier's face 
by his shako. It stood all alone by itself in 
a mile stretch of flat fallow land and wet meadows, 
bordered by scrub forests. 

A snake fence corral, sectioned off for calves and 
milch cows by rotting posts and crooked saplings 
with dry bark still clinging to them, fronted the hut. 
An arroyo, with a trickling stream at its bottom, 
finished the landscape, marking its serpentine course 
by shadowy hollows and an occasional palm or 
poplar. 

The body of the hut, consisting of one large 
sleeping-room, was walled with planks of palm bark 
held in place by horizontal poles passed over and 

*54 



The Sub-prefectura Yatal 255 

under and corded to the stout uprights with majana 
— it was magnified basket work, so thin you could 
have kicked a hole in it anywhere. The door was 
of stiffened cowskin, the hair worn off where the 
hand naturally pushed it, and it swung on hinges of 
more pliant leather. There were no windows. The 
long roof extended to shelter a table and chairs, 
making an open-air living-room for the prefect's 
family, and left space above for a loft in the eaves 
where the two sons of the prefect and transient 
guests slept on a loose flooring of boards. When 
any one climbed the home-made ladder to this nest 
of bats and moved about in it, dust of rotting wood 
and thatch showered the table and people below. 

Inside the bark chamber were two four-poster 
bedsteads, with gaudy patch quilts, two or three old 
hair trunks, an ebony crucifix, a framed print of 
the Virgin with the halo done in gilt, and a pair of 
broken chairs, retired from public service. This 
inventory I made from a furtive glance through the 
swinging door; for the bed-chamber in Cuba, of 
planter and peasant alike, is sacred to the family. 
Sunshine and fresh air filtered under the roof and 
through cracks and chinks in the frail partition 
walls, drying the earth floor and driving away 
impurities. A healthier habitation could not be 
imagined. 

The cooking at the prefectura was done in a 
roomy out-door kitchen, on a bank of hardened 
clay, where you could build a wood fire and cook 
things in pots and pans without stooping. There 
was no chimney, and the smoke followed prevailing 
draughts. Bunches of plantains and long strips of 



256 



Marching with Gomez 



dried beef hung decoratively from the trusses 
overhead. Two small green parrots with clipped 
wings made themselves at home, hitching about 
on the earth floor, or climbing over the chairs 
and a pile of loose boards that were lying there. 
The kitchen seemed to be the rallying-point of a 
"politic convocation" of hens and geese, who acted 

as scavengers. 

The main roof and the 
roof of the kitchen nearly 
met, and a trough between 
them shed water into a 
rain-barrel below. From 
this barrel one could dip 
up water to drink or wash 
in. There was a family 
basin and a family cake of 
soap. Rain came pretty 
regularly every day and 
night, for it was now the 
middle of the rainy sea- 
son. When an unusual 
quantity of water was expended by cooking or wash- 
ing, the rain-barrel was replenished by a pailful from 
the arroyo. 

Perez, the sub-prefect, with his wife and daugh- 
ters and a two-year-old boy, the baby of the family, 
slept in the chamber on the ground floor. The 
girls, Mercedes and Rosalia, were verging on 
womanhood. They had inherited lustrous eyes and 
neat little features from Moorish and Semitic ances- 
tors in old Spain. On fete days, or to receive visi- 
tors, they dressed their hair carefully and appeared 




Mercedes and Rosalia Perez mak- 
ing hats for the Cuban soldiers. 



The Sub-prefectura Yatal 



257 



in crackling gowns of flowery calico. At other 
times they were picturesquely slattern. 

Mercedes and Rosalia made hats for the Cuban 
soldiers. One twisted strands of bleached grass 
into a narrow tape and trimmed the edges with 
small scissors ; the other coiled the long neatly 
woven braid round and round from a central point 
in the crown, sewing the overlapped edges together 
till the brim, wide as you 
chose, was finished. Each hat 
was a good two davs' work. 

Once a week pacificos of 
the neighborhood came for 
supplies of meat. Then cat- 
tle were rounded up in the 
meadows and driven into the 
corral by Perez and his two 
sons, and a scene of untidy 
butchery followed. Steers 
were roped by the horns and 
dragged to a tree in the centre 
of the corral, and their throats 
cut with machetes. Some- 
times if they baulked too much at the blood-soaked 
soil, a post of the corral fence served instead. Sleek 
vultures floated lazilv up, settled on the highest 
posts, and gravely watched the spectacle. The meat 
was hacked into strips, and the pacificos spread it on 
boards used for the purpose, and rubbed in salt 
with their hands before the flies had a chance to 
settle and spoil it. Yatal was close to the shore, 
and there was plenty of salt, sent from the Govern- 
ment salt works near by. 




Rosalia Perez {with additions 
by her own hand). 



258 



Marching with Gomez 



On killing day, salted meat hung from every 
available beam and hook about the sub-prefectura, 
until the pacificos got through with their gossip, and 
packed off home with their supplies on led horses. 
Yatal was a secure district, some eight or nine miles 
from the nearest town, San Miguel, and soldiers 
had never strayed that far, nor was it likely they 




Killing day at the sub-prefectura. 

could do so, without alarm spreading through the 
country long beforehand. 

I had left Gomez and the Government at La 
Yaya, and come to Yatal, with Mario Carrillo and 
an American doctor to make one of a party 
about to put off from the coast near Nuevitas. 
Two boats were said to be concealed along the 
shore, and we were to escape in the better one. 
A four days' march, taking our ease by the road, 
brought us to the sub-prefectura, conveniently near 



The Sub-prefectura Yatal 259 

the point where we were to embark. We travelled 
practically unarmed. I had given my revolver 
before leaving Gomez to a young officer, cTEtampes, 
a Louisianian of Cuban family, and like the rest of 
the party, carried only a machete. So great was the 
safety of the country, that we slept one night in a 
farmhouse, with the light of Cascorro blinking at us 
from the cathedral tower, scarcely a mile away, and 
a garrison of three hundred men sleeping under it. 

Day after day rolled slowly by at Yatal, while we 
waited for arrangements of every kind to be made. 
Pilots were to be found who knew the Antillean 
waters ; lines of communication were to be made for 
tools, sail cloth, etc., from the towns of San Miguel 
and Nuevitas. The rest of our party, Colonel Ces- 
pedes and Lieutenant Eduardo Laborde, brother of 
Captain Laborde of Competitor fame, were to join 
us at some time or other. 

Meanwhile we made ourselves comfortable, and 
loafed under the " overhang " of Perez' roof, swore at 
everybody who went aloft and scattered dust on us, 
and occasionallv quarrelled to pass the time away. 
I built a cot of saplings for myself, with my canvas 
hammock stretched above as a shelter tent just out- 
side the kitchen. Carrillo and the doctor hung 
their hammocks from the upright supports of the 
" overhang," and my faithful Alfredo slept above 
in the loft with Carrillo's servant and the Perez 
boys. 

Juanito, the Perez baby, had somehow cut his 
thumb to the bone a week before our arrival, and 
the cut had become a gaping, festering wound. Dirt 
worked into it constantlv; for the little fellow ran 



260 Marching with Gomez 

about perfectly naked, playing with the dogs and 
hens, and in the mud of recent rains, and there was 
danger of mortification, with loss of his finger, possi- 
bly of his life, by blood-poisoning. The doctor's 
arrival saved him. Every other day the aseptic 
preparations, and the holding of the squealing 
youngster steady while the stitching and re-stitching 
went on, was a temporary excitement. Juanito was 
frightened into sitting still in a chair all day, with his 
hand in a clean sling, by the threat that if he moved 
the doctor would cut his finger off. 

Juanito was a wicked youngster. We had pur- 
chased, by encargo from San Miguel, a supply of 
coffee, sugar, rum, and tobacco, hard bread and 
chocolate, which we kept in a market basket on the 
table. Whenever we went to bathe in the arroyo, 
Juanito would slip from his chair and slyly filch a bis- 
cuit, or a bit of chocolate, and he dared not look any 
one in the eye for an hour afterward. So we slung 
the basket on a rope and hoisted it up to the flooring 
of the loft, where it could only be got at by a lower- 
ing and hitching and generally complicated process. 

Rumors of the doctor's skill spread abroad, and 
if a family had an anaemic child, one that had fits or 
strange swellings, or a grandfather with a cataract, a 
state visit to the sub-prefectura was made, the ladies 
arriving de gala on pillions under big sun-umbrellas. 
The sufferer was brought, and the conversation 
turned naturally on his ailments. Then the doc- 
tor's opinion was asked, through Carrillo and me, 
acting as interpreters. They were a kindly, simple 
lot, these peasants, very pleased and grateful at the 
doctor's " barn-shed " advice. 



The Sub-prefectura Yatal 261 

Mosquitoes, except after a heavy rain, were numer- 
ous and malignant beyond belief. Sometimes swarms 
of tiny gnats floated upon us from the low-lying 
shore, mobilizing on our ankles, climbing up under 
our trousers, prevading the rents in our clothing, 
stinging with a virulence out of all proportion to 
their size. Having no other covering, I slept with 
my feet thrust into the sleeves of an old coat, and a 
flannel shirt pulled over my head ; even then sleep- 
ing was an effort. Carrillo and the doctor, though 
provided with blankets, sometimes gave up sleep 
and sat up feeding the kitchen fire and talking the 
night away. 

While we waited at Yatal, news came that made 
our inactivity more irksome. Cascorro was taken 
by Avellino Rosas' infantry. Garcia had captured a 
gunboat on the Cauto river and burned the houses 
of Spanish adherents in the Holguim district. Jose 
Maceo had fallen at Lomo del Gato, leaving only 
Antonio, last of eleven brothers. 

At last Cespedes and Laborde arrived, and we 
accompanied them to Punto del Ganado, where the 
pilots and some men of the coast-guard were await- 
ing us. 

Rosalia and Mercedes' last wish was that I 
should bring them when I came back two " Ameri- 
cano legitimo " hats with flowers and birds and 
artificial fruit, such as they had once seen in a beau- 
tiful shop in Nuevitas. In return they would make 
me a fine Mambis sombero, with a silk escarapela 
(cockade) of the Republic, — red, white, and blue. 

Perez accompanied us to the Punto del Ganado, 
and went back with the horses. Then we continued 



262 Marching with Gomez 

along the beach, towards the Boca de Nuevitas, to 
where the boat lay, leaving a deep trail in the sand. 
Alfredo tagged along with the coast-guard, for he 
would not leave till he saw me safely afloat. Al- 
fredo had begged to go to America ; but he was 
inland-born and one glance at the boat and a sweep 
of his eye over the blue ocean, ruffled with white 
caps and broken with a spray-dashed line of reefs, 
changed his mind promptly and firmly. 

The path to a land of peace now lay before us ; 
all that detained us was the preparation of our craft. 

" No. 5," as she was labelled, was a stout whale- 
boat, twenty-seven feet of keel and five of beam. 
She was one of the boats of the Laurada, that 
landed the Ruz expedition at Punto del Ganado, near 
Nuevitas, on the nth of May, 1896. She landed 
her cargo of men and ammunition successfully, and 
when the other small boats were burned, " No. 5 " 
was paddled along the shore and hidden among the 
palms and grape trees, at a point midwav between 
the Punto del Ganado and Maternillos light. 

We were eleven in one party — Colonel Ces- 
pedes, Captain Mario Carrillo, Lieutenant Eduardo 
Laborde, the American doctor, three Cuban coast 
pilots, three negro sailors, and myself. Our " mas- 
cot," a gift to the doctor from Perez, — a green and 
red parrot that would wink intelligently when the 
word " filibuster " was mentioned, and cry " Al 
machete! Al machete ! " when excited, — completed 
the make-up of the party. 

The labor of refitting " No. 5 " for a sea-trip 
was slow. Sails, oars, masts, kegs for water, a rud- 




Salvador Perez, Sub-Prefect of Yatal. — Page 262. 
[Type of the Cuban Prefecto.] 



The Sub-prefectura Yatal 263 

der, putty, paint, and carpenter's tools, all had to 
be smuggled by our agents from the towns of San 
Miguel and Nuevitas. 

Days dragged on, and our materials came a little 
at a time. We lay beneath the palm and wild 
grape trees, tortured by mosquitoes and sand-flies, 
half a mile from Maternillos light and the entrance 
to Nuevitas harbor. In that harbor lay a gunboat, 
and another was on duty patrolling the coast for a 
few miles to east and west of us. Stories came from 
the town that our expedition was the talk of the 
cafes ; that a half-witted negro, called " Viva Dios," 
had made it the theme of improvised songs, or 
" decimas," while drunk in the streets of Nuevitas, 
and the bogy of treachery looked nearer to us than 
we cared at the time to admit. A Government 
commission, with State papers and despatches, 
would be no mean capture, and we felt that our 
heads would fetch a good price. 

By July 20th, after a delay of two long weeks, 
our tools and supplies had all come to us. At 
noon on that day the little gunboat Golondrina, 
with a Gatling gun and forty men, steamed between 
the foam-capped reefs and the shore, and dropped 
anchor in the channel barely three hundred yards 
from where we lay concealed. 

From between the grape branches we could see 
the officers and men on her deck, and that was a 
time for caution. Nails were driven with muffled 
hammers, fires were small, and the smoke was distrib- 
uted by a piece of tarpaulin, and we only ventured 
on the beach at night, while the Golondrina lay silent 
and watchful, with all her lights covered. At 



264 Marching with Gomez 

times a yellow gleam flashed from a hatchway as 
some one came on deck. 

On the 2 1 st there was an event. The Golondrina 
put out a boat ; but it only paddled for fifty yards 
about as if the crew were rowing for exercise and 
was then hauled on board. We continued to watch 
and wait under the pitiless sun. We had sent back 
our horses; we had left our arms with the last insur- 
gent force, and were in no condition to make a fight. 

I must own on this day to having refused to take 
up a ten-dollar bet with Carrillo that we would be 
captured. Work continued, however, in silence ; 
caulking, painting, and sail-fitting being done by our 
crew, with the assistance of a small party of the 
coast-guard. Colonel Cespedes lay in his hammock, 
slung between two palms, with his shattered leg 
placed as easily as could be, and superintended the 
work. 

Thursday, July 23d, brought us a second scare. 
At noon there was a cry from the watchers : " They're 
coming ashore! They're coming ashore!" The 
Golondrina was steaming silently eastward. We 
sprawled out on the ground or crouched in the bush. 
Fifty yards to eastward of us was an opening in the 
grape trees, through which a lookout with a good 
glass might have seen us. 

The Golondrina moved slowly along, very near 
the shore. Two seamen went aloft to her fore and 
main tops. With a bound one of our negroes 
jumped and cut the rope that held a tarpaulin tent 
over " No. 5 " ; for from the vessel's mast it would 
have been discernible. 

But the Golondrina moved on, skirting the inden- 



The Sub-prefectura Yatal 265 

tations of the shore toward Punta del Ganado. Her 
officers were certainly suspicious. Had she sent up 
her lookouts before getting under way, they must 
have seen us over the low palm tops. But the look- 
outs looked forward, not backward, and so the Golon- 
drina moved on till she became a speck on the blue 
waters and rounded the Punta del Ganado. 

Then all was activity. Nails and cleats were 
pounded in with reckless clatter, the masts were 
fitted, and shrouds were fastened in place. Eight 
kegs were filled with brackish water and rolled down 
on the beach. A rousing fire was built and a mess 
of boiled plantains prepared. Some of us bathed in 
the sea, and then we settled down to wait placidly 
for nightfall. 

At 7.30 all hands were at work, shoving and pull- 
ing silently, as became conspirators, to get "No. 5 " 
down to the water. A brisk wind blew in from the 
northeast, and great black clouds swept over the 
face of the moon, leaving us alternately in light and 
darkness. All was done in stillness, broken only by 
excited shrieks of " Al machete ! Al machete ! " 
from our " mascot." 

At 7.45 o'clock we launched " No. 5 " in the 
surf, and hurriedly threw aboard our water-kegs, a 
box of biscuits, a bundle of salted pOrk, and strips 
of dried beef. Colonel Cespedes, despite his pro- 
tests, was picked up bodily by the coast-guards, who 
waded to their waists in the sea, and placed him ten- 
derly in the stern of our swaying craft. Then it 
was, " Push off; catch her on the next wave ; wade 
and jump," for the rest of us. A flaw filled our 
mainsail and jib. " No. 5 " answered the helm, 



266 Marching with Gomez 

and we bore off free to the northwest toward Mater- 
nillos light. 

We were off at last, after twenty days of toil and 
anxiety. The strain was too great for the little 
group of watchers on land. Prudence was thrown 
to the winds and a "Viva! " rose that a gust caught 
and carried over the palm trees. " Viva Cuba ! 
Viva la Independencia ! " from the shore was an- 
swered by a faint " Al machete ! Al machete ! " from 
our boat. Then a cloud passed over the moon, and 
we were fairly started on our voyage. 

Our first course lay due northwest toward Mater- 
nillos light, in order to make the pass in the reefs 
that lie in front of the entrance to Nuevitas harbor. 
We passed in darkness half a mile to seaward off 
Maternillos light, and then sighted the light of 
Nuevitas harbor. From this point we struck a 
north-northwesterly course out through the reefs 
and past the breakers. 

The moon came out from beneath the clouds, and 
we had fears, as we cut the silver path of its reflec- 
tion, that we might be seen from the lighthouse and 
a gunboat sent after us. We pitched along, con- 
stantly shipping cold waves over our starboard bow 
that drenched us to the skin, but making good 
time. In an hour we had gained the darkness be- 
yond the treachery of the moon's rays, and felt a 
general sense of relief. 

It was a rough, gusty night. Once a squall 
struck us with a heavy fall of rain and we took in 
all sail ; but the wind settled down again to a north- 
east blow and we continued on our course. We 
felt now that odds were no longer against our es- 




' ' We were fairly started on our voyage. 



268 Marching with Gomez 

cape, and, though shivering in our scanty rags, wet 
and cold, and unable to sleep, we were contented. 
We all of us had seen enough of Spanish methods 
to know what it meant to be captured, and that the 
authorities would not be anxious for a repetition of 
the lingering Competitor trial. If a cruiser or gun- 
boat were to overhaul us, we knew we should be 
either run down, or quietly shot. 1 

The sun of July 24th rose through banks of 
purple clouds over a heavy sea, and a head wind 
was still blowing from the northeast. At noon the 
heat was blistering. We were off the Columbus 
Banks in English waters. Below, we could see a 
sandy bottom, with beds of brown sponges, and the 
lead told four fathoms. 

Night closed at last, and some of us slept, in 
spite of the waves that still dashed over us, while 
the others kept themselves awake by bailing out the 
boat. 

At sunrise on the 25th we sighted Green Key. 
We landed there to stretch our cramped limbs at 
six o'clock, and were welcomed to English soil by 
a party of duck-shooters from Nassau. 

At Green Key we learned that a quarantine of 
fourteen days awaited us in Nassau, and that we 
might wait many days for a steamship to the main- 
land. I begged that we might continue our trip, 
regardless of heat, bad water, and lack of provisions, 
to Jacksonville, or Palm Beach, but the proposition 
was not acceptable to the " ship's company." 

We took to our boat again, after a half-hour's 

1 According to newspaper rumors, this was the fate of a small schooner with 
a party of filibusters, off Pinar del Rio, some months ago. 



The Sub-prefectura Yatal 269 

rest, and continued our course, with a smoother sea 
but scorching sun. Toward evening we sighted the 
southern shore of Nassau, a low line of beachless 
coral, with dwarfed palm trees. Unable to beat 
against the wind, we took to the oars and rowed 
half-way about the island, dropping into the harbor 
silently with the tide. 

It was two o'clock on Sunday morning when we 
floated past the quarantine. It was my intention to 
"jump" the quarantine if no other escape could be 
had. We lay alongside a sponge schooner, and I 
stealthily called to the captain, who awoke and came 
on deck. He was a negro and suspicious. I 
offered him large sums to take us to Jacksonville, 
or into the path of northbound steamers, anywhere : 
but he scorned all explanations. " Go 'way, white 
man," was all that could be got from him. 

The doctor and I then landed, just in time to 
be surrounded by a dozen of the Nassau police. 
Judging from our hard features and clothing, the 
captain had taken us for pirates and sent one of his 
men to warn the authorities. 

We were then ordered to our boat, and when 
daylight came were held as an exhibition for the 
people of Nassau, who flocked, all colors, ages, and 
sexes, to peer at us from the wharf, until a kind- 
hearted official ordered us moored in the centre of 
the stream ; where we remained until towed, at our 
own expense, to the quarantine station on an island 
opposite the town, at four o'clock that afternoon. 

We broke the Nassau laws in landing, but were 
courteouslv dealt with, and our term of quarantine, 
in spite of the malign efforts of a local Spanish con- 



270 Marching with Gomez 

sul, was cut down to four days ; after which we 
were permitted to board the Antilla, bound for New 
York. 

At quarantine, we were shut off from the outside 
world ; but received fruits, tobacco, and similar 
tokens of esteem from the inhabitants, who sailed 
each day to examine our boat and " admire " us 
from a distance. Two of our negroes from Jamaica 
were sponge-fishers, British subjects, and Colonel 
Cespedes thought best to carry a British flag, rely- 
ing on the protection Great Britain extends to her 
own, however lowly. 

The sun was low on August 2d when the Anlilla 
anchored before quarantine in the narrows of New 
York harbor. A tug lay alongside, with a number 
of prominent Cubans, some members of Carrillo's 
family, and a squad of reporters, whose accounts of 
our arrival were to glisten in the columns of next 
morning's papers. 

Then, as darkness fell, we steamed to our pier on 
the East river. A bugle call floated from a long 
white battleship, moored in midstream, as her colors, 
the stars and stripes, were lowered for the night. 
The city before us lay peaceful and misty. A black 
thread of men and vehicles moved over the Brook- 
lyn bridge. Above us, on imperishable founda- 
tions of granite, towered the gigantic bronze figure 
of Liberty, and to those of us who were familiar 
with it, it seemed noble and impressive as never 
before. 



Appendix A 

Social Classes in Cuba 

One often hears it asserted that the admixture of negro 
blood in Cuba is so great that once independent she would 
surely become another Hayti, or at best as turbulent a 
state as any of the smaller South American Republics. 

As a matter of fact, the Cuban differs distinctly in blood 
from his South American or Central American cousins of 
Spanish descent. To begin with, from the time of Diego 
Velasquez, as the richest and nearest of Spain's possessions, 
Cuba was a preferred, a somewhat exclusive, colony. To 
Cuba, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, came 
cadets of ancient and influential Castilian families, a class 
that may be directly compared to the cavalier planters of 
tide-water Virginia. The native Indian, who left half- 
breed descendants in other Spanish colonies, 1 ceased to 
exist in Cuba as early as 1700, and as an ancestor he is 
such a genealogical curiosity that Cubans delight to trace 
back to him, as do our Southern families to Pocahontas. 
As for the African, he entered the field as a slave, and 
mixed with the colonial population only through those 
accidents which occur from generation to generation in 
all slave-holding communities. 

Thus at the beginning of the present century, we find 
in Cuba a powerful, pure-blooded, colonial aristocracy, 
steadily increasing in wealth, educating its children care- 

1 Chili must be excepted, for slavery never existed within her limits, and the 
native Chilian Indians, the Arauncanians, remain unsubdued in iheirown mountainous 
districts. 

271 



272 Marching with Gomez 

fully, and graduating its younger sons into the ranks of the 
libera] professions. 

A second class, of small tradespeople, recruited from the 
most active, aggressive, and money-getting of the peasant 
emigrants from Asturias, Gallicia, Catalonia, even of Anda- 
lucia, was at this time gaining in numerical and material 
importance, an ambitious class anxious to become wealthv 
and to hold its own with the sugar, coffee, and tobacco 
aristocrats. 

Thirdly, from the more easy-going and less enterprising 
of this wave of peasant immigration, and from those en- 
cumbered with wives and children, there grew up a yeo- 
manry of small farmers, sometimes called monteros, who 
occupied the cheaper and more rugged portions of the soil, 
cultivating small patches of vegetables, and raising large 
families. These monteros entered the towns onlv to dispose 
of their surplus produce, and thus became marketmen for the 
populous districts. In busy times they were often employed 
as overseers on the large estates, and some of them be- 
came slave-drivers by profession. This class, that was 
swiftly becoming numerous as early as 1800, has since 
increased out of all proportion to other classes in Cuba, 
and to-day forms the bone and sinew of Camaguev and 
Oriente, as it did of the central and western provinces 
before its recent extermination by Weyler's policy of con- 
centration. 

In the early years of the nineteenth century, from its 
social composition Cuba was a distinctly Tory colony. 
The corrupt exactions of officials sent out by the home 
government were less openly practised than in Spain's 
more remote provinces, and in the eighteenth century the 
island had actually two honest captains-general. Thus, 
when the South American colonies took advantage of 
Spain's difficulties with Napoleon I. to assert their inde- 
pendence, Cuba boldly declared for the deposed Ferdinand 
VII., and won the title of " The Ever-Faithful Isle." 



Appendix A 273 

Spain's loss of her South American colonies seems to 
mark the inception of revolutionary ideas in Cuba. Friends 
of the home government who wished to become speedily 
rich began to find the most desirable and remunerative 
colonial positions of trust and confidence limited to "The 
Ever-Faithful Isle." So, as decades of the century passed, 
little by little a Spanish machine was constructed in Cuba 
that discriminated rudely against the insular, in favor of the 
peninsular, to a point that was soon to become unendurable. 

Meanwhile climatic influence and the hereditary posses- 
sion of wealth developed in the insular, whether he was of 
one generation's standing or ten, traits that were bound to 
antagonize him to the native Spaniard. The insular had 
generally been educated abroad in France, perhaps in the 
United States, and had some ideas of what a good govern- 
ment should be. The insular, himself generous, mild, 
courteous, and cultivated, found the average Spaniard a low, 
rough fellow. On the other hand, the native of old Spain 
" did not endeavor to conceal his contempt for foreigners 
of all classes, and as to the Creole, he simply scorned to 
meet him on social grounds, shielding his inferiority of 
intelligence under a cloak of hauteur, assuming the wings 
of the eagle ; but possessing only the eyes of the owl." * 
Thus, sociallv and politically, the bitterness between Cas- 
tilian and creole was ever on the increase, though the 
children of the former were reasonablv sure to espouse 
the cause of the latter, as in several cases that fell under 
my observation. Riding once, for instance, bv a stretch 
of burning canefield, in the Manigua, my Cuban guide 
turned to me : " That is the property of old Don Fulano 
de Tal, a bad Spaniard. He slept his first night in Havana, 
forty years ago, on the doorstep of a gin-shop in the ' Obra 
Via,' and he earned a dram and his first Cuban sixpence 

1 I quote in this passage freely from the account written some years ago by Mr. 
Maturin Ballou. See " Due South," p. 230. 



274 Marching with Gomez 

sweeping out the shop in the morning, and is now a 
wealthy planter of Cardenas. He married a Cuban lady 
of good family, and he has a son with Maceo." 

It is not surprising, therefore, to find the aristocratic 
" Insular " planters taking the field with their negro slaves 
and the more adventurous of the monteros in 1868, in 
spite of the fact that they risked their estates, and often 
the lives of their families, in so doing. They had been far 
less ready to take the field against Spain than their grand- 
fathers had been to take it against Napoleon in Spain's defence 
sixty years before. 

The bloody memory of the "Ten Years' War" did much 
to prepare Cubans for the present outbreak, and to-day, 
while we find the peasant classes and the negro and mu- 
latto element far more numerously represented among the 
commissioned officers of the army than in the last war, 
both the civil and military ranks are filled with men of 
position and property who have risked everything for their 
cause, and the moving class in the Revolution is the 
same Creole aristocracy that went to the field in 1868. 
Whether their sympathies have been openly or secretly 
expressed, it is not too much to say that probably of the 
entire Cuban-born population, less than one per cent favors 
the continuance of Spanish rule in any form. " Whether 
the classes that have hitherto controlled the Revolution 
and conducted it in moderation, shall continue to control 
the government that is to be under the less stirring con- 
ditions of peace, is a matter of inference. 



Appendix B 
The Organization of the Cuban Army 

In the spring of 1896 the " Liberating Army" extended 
through every district of Cuba, from Cape Maysi to Cape 
San Antonio. Six Divisions were organized, each under a 
General of Division, and operating, or campaigning in one 
of the six provinces. Antonio Maceo, Lieutenant-General 
of the Liberating Army, was given command of the forces 
in Pinar del Rio, a division, that, portioned off as it was 
by the big trocha from the rest of Cuba, conveniently con- 
stituted by itself a Department «of the West. Aguierre 
commanded in Havana, Lacret in Matanzas, Carillo in 
Las Villas, Suarez (who was subsequently cashiered for 
cowardice) in Camaguey, and Jose A4aceo in Oriente. 
Garcia landed near Baracoa at this time and a Department 
of the East, to include Camaguey and Oriente, was estab- 
lished for him, because from position and service in the last 
war he ranked both Maceo and Suarez. The convenient 
death of Jose Maceo, and reduction of Suarez, simplified 
Garcia's position in the East, and with the death of Antonio 
Maceo, he became by seniority second to Gomez. 

Each division consisted of two or three brigades, com- 
manded by Brigadier-Generals. Each brigade consisted of 
from three to four regiments, and a regiment comprised 
from three to four troops, or companies. It was the 
framework of an army, hastily organized with provision 
for indefinite extension. 

The troops or companies, or fuerzas, as they were 
generally known, were local, and at that time nearly all 
cavalry. They operated in districts wherein both officers 

275 



276 Marching with Gomez 

and men had always lived and were well known, as in 
the case of Andarje's and Rojas' commands. Two troops 
constituted a squadron, with a maximum strength (includ- 
ing non-commissioned officers) of one hundred armed men 
(armados, or bearers of long arms, rifles or shot-guns). Every 
force was allowed by regulation to muster desarmados to 
one-fourth of its strength of armed men. These desar- 
mados (the impedimenta) included a servant, or asistente, 
for every commissioned officer under the rank of Major 
(two asistentes for Majors and above), and camp followers, 
roustabouts, ready to fetch water, cook, and do all sorts of 
work that might absorb the attention of the armados. 

Anybody who has travelled with a cavalry troop knows 
how large a percentage of the force is daily occupied 
purely in camp duties, and will recognize the economy of 
arms attendant on this system. Moreover, these desarma- 
dos are always ready to* take the long arms of the dead, 
and weapons coming to the force by capture and become 
available in the skirmish line. 

Every squadron was supposed to muster a blacksmith ; 
but in Matanzas and Las Villas there was great difficulty 
in getting horseshoes, even nails, and in Camaguey, owing 
to the softness of the forest roads, shoeing, especially in the 
rainy season, was not absolutely necessary. 

In districts where horseflesh was scarce, a force contained 
a percentage of infantry, as Marto's force in Las Villas. 

Besides the local forces, were the expeditionary regi- 
ments, recruited generally through the Island, men who 
had arrived on expeditions from abroad, Spanish deserters; 
in fact, everything that came along. These men usually 
were detailed to accompany general officers on their criss- 
cross marches, through their provinces or districts. 

The followers of Gomez and Maceo in their invasion of 
the four Western provinces, including the Orientales (Ouin- 
tin Bandera's negro infantry), were all expeditionaries, and 
were termed at the time, "The Invading Army"; for few 



Appendix B 277 

local forces had then taken the Held. When the Western 
provinces rose, local forces were organized everywhere and 
kept the country unpacified, while the expeditionary forces 
marched to and fro, making special demonstrations wher- 
ever necessary. 

The officers of a squadron, or a full company of in- 
fantry, were a Major (in command), a Captain, two Lieu- 
tenants and an Alferez, four Sergeants and eight Corporals, 
the number of officers and non-commissioned officers bein»; 
large in proportion to the number of enlisted men. A 
squadron of two local forces acting in co-operation, or 
an unusually numerous force, was commanded by Colonel 
or Lieutenant-Colonel. 

Every general officer was entitled to an escolta, or body- 
guard, to number from 40 to 80 men, usually expedition- 
aries appointed to this service. 

It will be seen that a General of Brigade or Division could 
speedily mobilize a considerable number of local forces, and 
travel with as many as need be. I have always found, how- 
ever, that the Generals were accompanied by small com- 
mands, partly because, in the absence of a commissary 
department, and the impossibility (at least in the Western 
provinces) of organizing one, there was difficulty in feeding 
a concentrated body of men. 

A small force could live comfortably on the country, 
roping a steer, or digging up potatoes, as it went along, but 
the concentration of large forces invariably brought hunger, 
especially in a country already ravaged by armies. The 
case was different at the time of the invasion, for the coun- 
try was new to war, and the "Invading Army" had only" 
to help themselves. 

On enlisting in the "Liberating Army" either as an 
armado or an asistente, a soldier took an oath to support 
the constitution of the Republic. He was then furnished 
with a cedula, giving the date of his enlistment, his name 
and description. 



278 Marching with Gomez 

A Corporal, Sergeant, or an Alferez was appointed by 
the General of Brigade, on application of his troop com- 
manders, and received a formal warrant. Commissioned 
officers were appointed by the Commander-in-Chief, on 
application of the Generals of Brigade or Division, and re- 
ceived commissions. Naturally, owing to the difficulty of 
communication, many officers held rank on commissions 
signed by Generals of Division only; though such commis- 
sions were not in accordance with the regulations. 

Generals of Brigade and Division held authority through 
appointment of the Cabinet Council and Minister of War, 
approved by the Commander-in-Chief. 

Both Gomez and his Lieutenant, Antonio Maceo, held 
authority through the appointment of the same convention 
that appointed Cisneros President, and panelled the first 
Cabinet. 

The President of the Republic was, by the Law of Mili- 
tary Organization of January 27th, 1896, Commander-in- 
Chief of all the forces, ranking the General-in-Chief 
Gomez ; but he could only put himself at the head of the 
army by consent of the Cabinet Council of War (Consejo 
de Guerra). 

In the civil department, Governors and Lieutenant- 
Governors of Provinces and collectors of taxes held com- 
missions from the Cabinet Council, signed by the Minister 
of the Interior. Prefects and sub-prefects were appointees 
of the Provincial Governors, from whom they received 
commissions, and they in turn might issue cedulas to such 
armed men as they needed as scouts and to artisans em- 
ployed in the workshops under their direction. 

The legal form of a Prefect's, or Sub-prefect's commis- 
sion is accurately described by Mr. T. R. Dawley, Jr., in 
Leslie's Weekly, from which I clip the following : — 

" The document consists of a sheet of paper about six 
by nine inches. In the upper left-hand corner is stamped 



Appendix B 279 

4 Republic of Cuba — Lieutenant-Governor of Trinidad,' 
with the coat-of-arms of the republic in the centre. It 
reads thus: 'According to the faculties conceded to me by 
the law as lieutenant-governor of this district, I have seen 
fit to name you prefecto of Charco-Azul, trusting that you 
will know how to comply with the duties which the office 
imposes upon you in interest of the republic — Patria y 
Libertad — Cabargancito, December 10th, 1896. El 
Teniente Gobernador, Enrique Gomez. To the Citizen 
Juan Bautisto Place.' " 

In the same article, Mr. Dawley, illustrating the difficul- 
ties of a Cuban civil officer in Las Villas, continues : — 

"The prefecto showed me many of his official documents, 
which are deposited in the archives carried around his secre- 
tary's neck. These were saved from falling into the hands 
of the Spanish soldiers by the trusty secretary throwing 
himself into the bush and tumbling over a rocky precipice. 
He now exhibits himself with his shirt torn into shreds, 
minus a hat, and body badly scratched. He has shown 
me the public documents of two marriages officiated by the 
prefecto, and the proceedings in one case of breach of 
promise." 



Appendix C 

The Death of Mr. Crosby and the Murder of 
Mr. Govin 

Two American Correspondents have lost their lives in 
Cuba. Mr. Govin, who was murdered by Colonel Ochoa 
on July 9th, 1896, and Mr. Crosby who was shot while 
witnessing a skirmish at Santa Teresa, in Las Villas, on 
March 9th, 1897. 

It seems that Mr. Crosby, with Gomez and his staff, 
was on the outskirts of a forest, watching the Spanish ad- 
vance across the savanna. The Spanish fire was heavy, and 
Gomez' horse went down under a well-directed vollev. At 
almost the same moment, Mr. Crosby, who was looking at 
the enemy through his field-glass, fell from his saddle, be- 
tween his horse's legs, clutching his head with both hands. 
He died almost instantly, pierced by a Mauser bullet through 
the brain, and without a sound. 

Mr. Govin was a New Yorker by birth and education, 
and his father was a member of the Florida bar, for many 
years Collector of the Port of Key West, and at one time 
United States Consul at Leghorn. Govin went to Cuba, 
in an expedition, to join the insurgents, as correspondent 
of the Jacksonville Equator-Democrat, and he bore a corre- 
spondent's certificate, endorsed by a Notary Public at Key 
West, together with a passport signed by Secretary Olney. 
He carried neither firearms nor machete, and had scarcely 
been with the insurgents a week, at the time he fell in with 
Ochoa's command. 

Mr. Govin's death, had I been one of the eve-witnesses, 
would have made a fitting climax to my chapter on atro- 
cities. No statement by an actual eye-witness, to my 



Appendix C 281 

knowledge, has yet been published ; but I know of no more 
circumstantial and trustworthy account of the affair, than 
the one furnished me by Major Julio Rodriguez Baz, of 
Lacret's Division, while he was my guest at the Harvard 
Club, in New York, in September, 1896. Mr. Baz' state- 
ment, as taken down by me, was published in the 'Journal 
on the 14th of that month, and from it I quote freely. 

" Early in July I commanded a small force in the prov- 
ince of Havana, and marched in co-operation with Major 
Valencia, in whose troop Mr. Govin found himself on his 
wav to join General Maceo. 

"On the morning of the 9th of Julv, Major Valencia's 
troop of forty men skirmished with the column of Colonel 
Ochoa, at Correderas, in Jaruco District, near Havana. 
On retiring from force of numbers, Major Valencia found 
himself hemmed in bv the advance guards of two columns 
unexpectedly advancing in support of Ochoa. Mr. Govin, 
as Major Valencia told me, had been requested to remain 
with the main force ; but filled with enthusiasm, he lin- 
gered to take a near view of the advancing Spanish in- 
fant rv. 

" On finding his force surrounded, Major Valencia at 
once gave the order to scatter, 'each man for himself,' and 
retired with two of his aides under cover of an arroyo, but 
Govin was nowhere to be found. Time was not to be 
lost. The little troop, accustomed to tight pinches in a 
country full of Spanish soldiery, dispersed like the mist." 

" We were," said Major Valencia, " in an almost level 
country, with a small hill to our right •, to our left a rolling 
pasture shut in by a stone-wall, almost hidden in wild pine- 
apple and brush. The Jaruco high-road lav before us, upon 
which Ochoa's troops could be seen approaching. Be- 
hind the hill at converging angles come the two co-operat- 
ing Spanish columns. 

" Mr. Govin was well mounted, but unaccustomed to 



282 Marching with Gomez 

prompt movements of insurgents' forces, he was left with- 
out a guide. He rode up the little hill only to see Spanish 
troops advancing from three directions, and an open coun- 
try ahout him. His last movements were watched by seven 
of Major Valencia's soldiers, four white men and three 
negroes, who had lost their horses in the skirmish early in 
the day and could not escape with the rest. 

"They crouched in the heavy undergrowth of pineapple 
that skirted the stone-wall of the Jaruco road. These men 
witnessed his death and reported it to Major Valencia after 
the columns had retired. 

"Mr. Govin, finding himself lost, and trusting to Gen- 
eral Weyler's announcement that those who present them- 
selves shall be spared, and being also confident of his 
rights as a neutral American citizen, rode boldly up to 
Jaruco high-road to meet the column in command of Ochoa. 

" He waved his white handkerchief as he rode. The 
men in hiding beneath the stone-wall saw him join the ad- 
vance guard and talk for a moment with the sergeant in 
command. He was then detained until the main body of 
infantry and the stafF arrived. Then the eye-witnesses, 
who were only fifty yards away, saw him led before Colo- 
nel Ochoa, who dismounted and addressed him with vehe- 
mence and gesticulation. His papers were torn from his 
pockets, and his clothing hurriedly searched. No weapons 
were found ; but the red sealed correspondent's certificate 
and passport signed by Mr. Olney were handed to Ochoa, 
who glanced them over and scornfully threw them on the 
ground. 

" At the wave of Ochoa's hand Govin was bound, with 
his arms back of him, and the rope passed about his waist. 
An aguacate tree grew near by the high-road, and to this he 
was led and roughly tied. Colonel Ochoa followed and 
stood by. Then some non-commissioned officers drew 
their machetes and stepped up to the tree. In a few 
moments everything was over. 



Appendix C 283 

" The men in hiding under the stone-wall lay there till 
sunset, when the troops had returned to Jaruco. Then 
they went to Govin's body, and buried it where it had 
fallen from its bonds and lay cut in pieces near the agua- 
cate tree. They joined Major Valencia late that night 
and made a formal report of what they had seen." 

"These details," went on Mr. Baz, " I repeat as they 
were given to me by Major Valencia, . . . and as I wrote 
them in a deposition before a Notary Public in Key West, 
at the request of P. L. Govin, brother of the victim, who 
intended to forward a statement of the facts to the Govern- 
ment at Washington." 

Major Baz, who was the first to bring an authentic 
account of the Govin affair to the United States, returned 
soon after to Cuba. He was a man of good position, and 
at the outbreak of the insurrection he was Portuguese 
Consul in Havana. I have never heard his statement 
contradicted. If I am to credit the despatch of a Havana 
correspondent, Ochoa boastfully wore and displayed 
Govin's watch and sleeve buttons about Havana after the 
incident, after the manner in which the Duke of Ahumada 
wore and jested over the wedding-ring found on the finger 
of Antonio Maceo. 



Appendix D 
What Concentration Means 

I cannot speak from my own experience of Weyler's 
concentration policy. It was put in force by the Captain- 
General some months after I left the Island. 

Mr. Stephen Bonsai, however, writes that "by the 1st 
of December, 1896, 400,000 non-combatants and peace- 
loving peasants, including their aged and infirm parents, 
their wives and their children, were 'concentrated' in the 
stations, which, whether they were chosen with this object 
in view or not, have proven admirably adapted to the 
realization of a policy of extermination " ("Real Condition 
of Cuba To-day," p. 99). 

These people were driven from their homes, which were 
burned, and (May, 1897) "fr° m tne Jucaro-Moron trocha 
westward to Cape San Antonio," outside of the towns, of 
course, "not a single home, however modest and lowly, 
has been left standing." 

Penniless and unable to find work, these peasants were 
herded within or on the outskirts of the cities and larger 
towns, and a dead-line was drawn about them by a "blood- 
thirsty and brutalized soldiery" ready to inflict a speedy 
death on those who attempted "escape from their pens." 

Mr. Bonsai describes a colony of concentrados, living, or 
rather dying, on the Cascorro hill in the city of Matanzas. 
In the latter part of March, 1897, tms colony numbered 
about 3000 people. The dead-cart daily carried away 
between 25 and 30 victims of starvation. 

Cascorro hill was a healthy residence with perfect 
natural drainage. " Had the scantiest rations been served 

284 



Appendix D 285 

out to them or even the most ordinary sanitary laws been 
enforced, there would have been but little danger of sick- 
ness breaking out among them." 

"Without exception," Mr. Bonsai continues, "all the 
other places of residence which have been assigned to the 
concentrados, I found to be uniformly on swampy and low- 
lying ground, where the most intelligent care and the best 
of attention could not have prevented the outbreak of the 
several epidemics by which they are ravaged" (page 120). 

Such was the condition of the concentrados before the 
opening of the rainy season, when intense heat and moist- 
ure and lack of sanitation make every town a nest of 
typhus and malarial fever. And these country people, one 
must remember, "are as unacclimated to fever as though 
they were Germans and Swedes recently landed. For on 
the highlands where they have lived a case of fever is quite 
as rare an occurrence as it is in New York city " 1 
(page 127). 

Without medicines or medical attendance, it would be 
interesting to know how many of the original 400,000 
are alive to-day. 

Later authorities than Mr. Bonsai, who was most con- 
servative and careful, estimate the destruction of peasant 
life (concentrados), and those who endeavored to escape 
the edict by hiding in the forests, and those who were 
murdered outright before the edict was put in force, at 
600,000. 

1 So far as I can judge from mv own observation and experience the open country 
of Cuba is absolutely healthy at all times of the year, and the high death-rate in the 
towns, among natives and foreigners alike, including the Spanish soldiers huddled to- 
gether in noisome barracks, is due to an utter lack of drainage, and the simplest rules 
of cleanliness, especially in the rainy season, when the prurient offe] of the past win- 
ter is washed into the surface wells. With proper precaution an army might cam 
paign in Cuba with only a fractional percentage on the sick list. — Author. 



Appendix E 
The Effects of the Modern Mauser Bullet 

For two decades military experts, both at home and 
abroad, have studied to construct a model magazine rifle, 
with double the range and power of either the Martini- 
Henry or the Springfield " long- 

/ -N toms," and an ammunition so de- 

V r: "*" -^ — '"-" . " — ' creased in weight as to enable a 

The Mauser Bullet. soldier to go into action with a triple 

allowance of cartridges comfortably 
packed in his belt. These requirements are fulfilled by 
three modern rifles, — the Krag-Jorgensen, already adopted 
by the United States ; the Lee-Metford, with which Eng- 
land is arming her forces ; and the Mauser, issued by Spain 
to her regular infantry. 

The bullets shot by all three are practically of the same 
pattern. Soft lead will not stand the strain caused by the 
quick twist in modern rifling ; therefore the modern bullet 
is long, built of hardened lead encased in an envelope of 
cupro-nickel, turned over at the end to prevent the gas, on 
explosion of the charge, from getting between the envelope 
and the leaden core beneath, with a calibre of .305 to .315 
inch, no larger than a small lead pencil. 

It was thought that the vastly increased range and rapid- 
ity of fire of the new weapons would increase the enemy's 
percentage of disabled, and correspondingly thin his fight- 
ing ranks by the number of men required to transport the 
wounded to the rear, — this on the theory that wounded 

286 



Appendix E 287 

men hamper an army more than the dead, for whom noth- 
ing more has to be done. 

On the score of fulfilling their inventors' hopes the 
Krag-Jorgensen, the Lee-Metford, and the Mauser are 
eminently successful, the first having, on test, driven its 
bullet intact into something like seven feet of solid plank; 
but it remains for the surgical history of the Cuban war 
to prove that, before the modern bullets can be relied upon 
to kill or really disable, a further change must be made in 
their construction. 

The clean little Mauser ball, for instance, speeds on its 
way, sterilizing itself by friction with the atmosphere, and 
traverses the human anatomy, leaving (at ordinary ranges) 
a wound scarcely larger at the point of exit than at the 
point of entrance, and causing only a trifling hemorrhage. 
Unless it ricochets, or bursts its nickel cap through undue 
expansion of the lead beneath, it never carries particles of 
clothing into the flesh, and if it encounters a bone on its 
route, it drills a small round hole and passes on its way, 
rarely splintering, shattering, or causing dangerous com- 
plications. 

Thus, as in several cases that have come under my 
personal notice, a man mav be struck bv a Mauser in the 
thigh or knee-joint, and speedily recover with full use of 
the joints, while in previous militarv surgery wounds of the 
kind have been followed by one of three things, — ampu- 
tation, death, or permanent lameness. 

So slight is the fear of Mauser wounds among the Cuban 
forces that it has become rather a discredit to a soldier not 
to have one or more wounds, and for this reason you fre- 
quently see men expose themselves needlessly to fire, as a 
child darts from a doorway into a heavy rain and scampers 
back again for mere excitement. 

At the battle of Saratoga, besides the eleven who were 
either killed outright or died within a few hours from seri- 
ous abdominal wounds, sixty-four insurgents were treated 



288 



Marching with Gomez 



in the extemporized hospitals, and forty of them, after one 
dressing, reported for duty within twenty-four hours. Sev- 
eral others (like Guitierrez at Manajanabo) did not require 
any especial treatment for wounds through their arms and 
legs, which scarcely bled and amounted to nothing more 
than jokes for the parilla fires. 

One extraordinary case was that of 
Major Paulino Guerin, a bluff and sturdy 
aide-de-camp, who was struck in the hip 
(at about 400 yards) late in the after- 
noon of June 10, while Gomez and his 
stafF were reconnoitring the breastworks 
thrown up by the enemy on Saratoga 
hill. The bullet passed through a loose 
cartridge in the pocket of Guerin's coat, 
and obliquely through his body, coming 
out behind and above the hip joint on the 
right side. It must have cut through 
some of the intestines ; but Major Guerin 
did not dismount at the time, but had 
his wound dressed on making camp an 
hour later. I asked Major Guerin if it 
did not hurt him ; but he replied that it 
did not " very much," and showed me 
the pierced cartridge with great pride, 
assuring me that he felt no fever. I 
actually saw him in the saddle on the 
following day, and I never learned that he suffered any evil 
effects of his injury. 

While in Matanzas with Lacret, I saw a man who had 
recovered perfectly from a remarkable wound. While rid- 
ing from action, leaning far forward on his saddle to escape 
fire (at a range of 300 yards), he was struck in the back 
by a Mauser bullet. The bullet passed (in medical par- 
lance) through the upper portion of the scapula on the 
right side, through the superficial neck muscles, beneath 




Major Guerin's sou 
venir of Saratoga. 



Appendix E 



289 



Wouwd 
E 0/ 



the angle of the jaw, and made its exit through the orbital 

cavity, carrying with it a portion of the right eye. On his 

back this man bore a tiny white cicatrice, less noticeable 

than a vaccination 

mark. Barring the loss 

of his eye, he offered 

no other trace of the 

wound than a deep 

scarified furrow at the 

base of his eyebrow, 

where the Mauser had 

made its exit. 

I had occasion to 
witness an illustration 
of the Mauser lack 
of systemic shock or 
" stopping power " in 
Las Villas, where, 
while retreating from 
an infantry column, a 
soldier was struck in 
the head (at about 500 yards) by a stray shot. He 
swerved in his saddle for an instant with an " Ay, mi 
madre ! " but promptly straightened up and jogged on. 
We supposed that the ball had merely passed through his 
hat; but, after riding perhaps twenty feet, he collapsed 
on the pommel of his saddle and fell between his horse's 
feet, dead. The ball had passed directly through his 
temples, as two small spots of blood in the short hair on 
cither side proved, and it must have caused a hemorrhage 
of the brain. So far as one could judge, he received less 
shock than would have been given by an ordinary twenty- 
two short-calibre bullet shot from a Flaubert rifle. 

Excepting abdominal wounds, of which the victims either 
recovered speedily or died in agony several hours afterwards, 
the only case of a really painful wound from a Mauser ball, 
u 




A case of perfect recovery. 



290 Marching with Gomez 

that occurs to me, was received by Brigadier-General Vega 
in the leg, on May 10th, near Manajanabo. In this in- 
stance the bullet ricochetted from a stony path which 
Gomez and his staff were ascending at the time, tearing 
its nickel cover, and carried a piece of Vega's leather legging 
into the wound. General Vega suffered great pain and 
required almost the daily attendance by Dr. Abreu, the 
staff-surgeon, for two weeks, and had not ceased to feel 
the wound when I last saw him a month afterwards. Thus 
it will be seen that, unless the small-calibre bullet can be 
clipped or perforated so as to cause it to mushroom, or 
spread, on striking, it is not sufficient to deter men from 
advancing or continuing to fight when wounded, unless 
they happen to be of the fifteen per cent 1 or so of the 
total wounded who are unlucky enough to be struck in 
vital places. 

L quote from the New York Sunday journal of August 
9, 1896, the following extraordinary (perhaps phenomenal) 
cases, recorded by an American surgeon in the Cuban 
field; because they are quite in line with my own superfi- 
cial observations, and I have no doubt that he is scien- 
tifically accurate in detail. 

"Case * — Jose H., wounded in the shoulder by a 
Mauser. The bullet entered the left breast, slightly above 
the heart, ranged to the left and upward. This bullet 
passed directly through the upper lobe of the left lung, 
perforating the scapula on its exit from the body. The 
wounds of entrance and exit were almost of the same 
size. There was very little inversion or eversion of tis- 
sue, and absolutely no hemorrhage. The man felt slight 
discomfort, had a slight cough on the second day, but with- 
out bloody expectoration. He refused to be confined to 
his bed or hammock. The wound was first dressed by a 

1 I have this percentage, on rough observations, of number of dead and wounded 
in the several skirmishes mentioned. 



Appendix E 291 

peasant, and a soiled sheet was used as a bandage. There 
were only four dressings, and on the tenth day the patient 
was performing his regular duties as a private soldier." 

" Case ** — Private soldier wounded at 300 yards. 
Mauser bullet entered the abdomen, ranging upward and 
to the left. It made its exit considerably to the left of the 
spinal column. There was very little hemorrhage and no 
pain. The man received no treatment for four days, other 
than that of the peasants, who swathed the body in cloths, 
none too clean. On the fourth day the wound was dressed 
by a surgeon, and cotton held by rubber adhesive plaster 
was applied, which was the only dressing available in camp. 
The temperature did not rise even one degree; the pulse 
was normal, and recovery splendid. The ball, after going 
through the abdominal cavity, must have passed through 
several coils of intestines." 

"Case *** — Is similar in character to above. Cor- 
poral Alfred G . Mauser, wounded at 400 yards. 

The bullet passed first through his right forearm, entered 
the abdominal cavitv, slightlv below and in front of the 
twelfth rib, continued directly through the body, and came 
cut on the left side. The wound of exit was slightly 
larger than the wound of entrance. There was a slight 
hemorrhage. No treatment was received for several davs, 
and no operative proceedings were instituted, there being 
absolutely no chance for same. The patient was cared for 
by peasants in a hut well ventilated, but filthy beyond 
description. Recovery was perfect. Wounds of this kind 
have heretofore always resulted in death." 

"Case **** — While not dangerous to life, illus- 
trates the power of the Mauser to penetrate bones without 

dangerous complications. Lieutenant E , wounded at 

Saratoga, just below the middle of his leg. Bullet pene- 
trated the tibia, making a single round hole just the size of 
the bullet. There was no shattering or splintering of the 
bone, such as always occurs with a copper-headed or leaden 



292 Marching with Gomez 

bullet. Hemorrhage was considerable. Lieutenant E- 



received no treatment for several days, and the wound 
healed without suppuration, although recovery was slow." 

"Case ***** — J. E., private soldier, was struck 
by a Mauser bullet, which entered directly in the centre of 
his knee-cap. The bullet perforated the patella with a 
range slightly to the right. The wound of exit was one 
inch to the right of the median line, and the joint cavity 
was open. There was no splintering of the bone, and a 
small, round hole was the only visible wound. The wound 
of exit in this case was considerably larger than that of 
entrance. The knee was dressed by peasants, who took 
him into their cabin, which was all the treatment he 
received for several days. The wound healed perfectly, 
with the motion as good as ever." 1 

In these cases, the sturdy health and moderate diet of the 
patients, combined with open-air surroundings, contributed 
vastly to the speedy recovery. There is, however, a start- 
ling contrast, when we turn to the " Surgical History of the 
Civil War," and read of the effects of the old-fashioned 
army rifle-bullet from cases directly corresponding to the 
ones cited above, all of which proved fatal : — 

Case (which corresponds to case of the soldier 
wounded in Matanzas, recorded in diagram above)- — Private 
Wilbur F. Matthews, Twenty-Fourth Indiana, wounded 
on second day of battle of Shiloh ; musket ball entered 
through scapula, or shoulder, on the right side, the wound 
entrance being irregular in shape and of the dimensions 
of a silver quarter, splintered the shoulder and shoulder- 
blade, causing injuries that would in themselves have 
proved fatal ; then ploughed up through the muscles of 

1 At very close range, a few yards from the muzzle, owing to a supposed pecul- 
iarity of its rotary motion, the Mauser is said to be far more deadly. Captain Rami- 
rez, who fell at Saratoga at close range, fifty yards or so, had three wounds, all of 
which appeared larger and showed traces of greater hemorrhage than wounds at 
longer ranges. 



Appendix E 293 

the neck, and actually blew away the jaw-bone and side 
of the face. The bullet flattened into an irregular shape, 
finding final lodgment in the socket of the eye, which it 
dislodged. With these terrible injuries Matthews lingered 
for two days. 

* — Private Henry L. Newman, Eleventh Missouri, 
Wilson's Creek. Lead rifle bullet entered left breast above 
the heart, ranged upward and to the left, passing through 
the upper lobe of the left lung, and, emerging at the shoul- 
der, fractured it and tore a great hole through the shoulder- 
blade. Newman lingered in great agony for seventy-two 
hours. 

** — Private Wilson, First Ohio Artillery, Chicka- 
mauga, musket ball entered abdomen to the left of navel, 
ranged upward and to the left, passing through the lung, 
and made its exit to the left of the spinal column. The 
wound was large enough to* pass a handkerchief through. 

*** — Sergeant Evan A. Morris, Forty-Third Illi- 
nois Cavalry. Minie ball at 400 yards passed through left 
forearm, with which he was guiding his horse, actually sev- 
ering both bones so that shreds of muscle alone prevented 
it from falling away, entered the abdomen, making a most 
hideous hole, as the ball had been twisted into the shape 
of an hour glass, and emerged on the left side, below the 
twelfth rib, the wound of exit being twice as large as the 
frightful hole bv which it entered. 

**** — Private Guy, Thirty-Ninth North Carolina, 
at Stone River. Musket ball entered at the junction of the 
middle and upper third of the tibia, or large bone of the 
lower part of the leg, actually carrying away a piece two 
inches long, while the remainder of the bone above and 
below was fractured in innumerable places. The bone 
was fairly shattered, as was the smaller one next to it. 
Guy died from the shock shortly after. 

***** — Private Jonathan Harris, Seventy-Fourth 
New York. Minie ball of .58 calibre struck the patella, 



2,94 Marching with Gomez 

or flat bone of the knee, squarely breaking it into fragments 
of bone gravel and fracturing every bone of the knee. The 
diagram of the record, which shows the fractured limb as 
if reset, shows over ioo fragments of bone. In an obser- 
vation of 351 cases of gunshot injury to the knee, 27.9 
per cent were fatal, and amputation was resorted to in 79 
per cent of the cases. 

By disposing thus lightly of the effects of the new bul- 
let, it must not be inferred that there is no suffering among 
the wounded in the Cuban field. In the cases of men 
injured in the trivial skirmishes, or exchanging of shots 
that occur so constantly throughout the island between 
the insurgents and the guerilla bands and cavalry advance 
guards of marching columns, a different story is told. The 
guerillas are armed with the Remington carbine, and the 
" long-torn " of the same pattern is also supplied to some 
regiments of royal troops. Wounds from these weapons 
present the same characteristics as those taken from the 
surgical records of our late Civil War. The surgeon 
whose Cuban cases I quote above describes a wound by 
the " yellow ammunition," by far the deadliest known in 
Cuba. The " yellow " bullets are tipped with a casing 
of copper alloy, which tears and mushrooms easily on 
entrance, with such serious effects that a rumor spread 
that they were explosive. The case in question "was that 
of a soldier struck in the hip, the "yellow " bullet splinter- 
ing the bones in every direction, carrying away a bundle 
of tissue, and leaving a hole of exit into which one could 
have thrust a large orange. 



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" Miss Traumerei : A Weimar Idyl." By Albert Morris 
Bagby #1.50 

" Zuleka : Being the History of an Adventure in the Life 
of an American Gentleman, with Some Account of 
the Recent Disturbances in Dorola." By Clinton 
Ross . . . . . . _ . $1.50 

" At the Queen's Mercy : A Tale of Adventure." By 
Mabel Fuller Blodgett. With 5 full-page illustra- 
tions by Henry Sandham, R.C.A. . . $1.25 

" Wives in Exile." A Comedy in Romance, by William 
Sharp . . . . . . $1-25 

" The Gold Fish of Gran Chimu." By Charles F. Lummis. 
Illustrated by Henry Sandham, R.C.A., with head- 
pieces drawn by Willard Emery and Arthur T. Clark, 
and end-pieces by Miss Gwendoline Sandham 5 I «5° 



Publications of Lamson, IVoljfe C5 Company 3 

Histories. 

"A History of Canada." With Chronological Chart, and 
Map of the Dominion of Canada and Newfoundland. 
By Charles G. D. Roberts . . $2.00, net 

"Pictures of Russian History and Russian Literature." 
(Lowell Lectures.) By Prince Serge Wolkonsky. 
With portrait of the author . . $2.00, net 

Poetry. 

« Ballads of Lost Haven : A Book of the Sea." By Bliss 
Carman ...... $1.00, net 

" Behind the Arras : A Book of the Unseen." By Bliss 
Carman. With designs by T. B. Meteyard $1.50, net 

" Low Tide on Grand Pre : A Book of Lyrics." By 
Bliss Carman ..... $1.00, net 

"An Opal." By Ednah Proctor Clarke . $1.00, net 

" The Book of the Native." By Charles G. D. Roberts 

$i.oo, net 

"James Clarence Mangan : His Selected Poems." With 
a study by the editor, Louise Imogen Guiney Si. 50 

" The House of the Trees, and Other Poems." Bv 
Ethel wyn Wetherald . . . . #1.00, net 

" Skenandoa." By Clinton Scollard . . . 51.00 

" Giovio and Giulia : A Metrical Romance." By Clinton 
Scollard ....... $1.00 



4 Publications of Lamson, Woljfe & Company 

" The Viol of Love." By Charles Newton Robinsoa 

$1.50, net 

" The Love Story of Ursula Wolcott." By Charles 

Knowles Bolton. With illustrations by Ethel Reed 

$1.00 

" The White Wampum : A Book of Indian Verse." By 

E. Pauline Johnson . . . . £1.50, net 

Juvenile. 

"Fairy Tales." By Mabel Fuller Blodgett. With 12 
full-page illustrations by Ethel Reed . . $1.50 

" The True Mother Goose." Illustrated and edited by 
Blanche McManus. With a historical preface $1.50 

Translations. 



" The Great Galeoto, and Folly or Saintliness." By Jose 
Echegeray. Translated by Hannah Lynch $1.50, net 

" Trilby, the Fairy of Argyle." By Charles Nodier. 
Translated by Minna Caroline Smith " . .50 

" Magda." A play in four acts. By Hermann Suder- 
mann. Translated by Charles-Edward Amory Wins- 
low ........ $1.00 

" Vera Vorontzoff." By Sonya Kovalevsky. Translated 
by Baroness Anna von Rydingsvard . . $1.25 

Short Stories. 

u The Merry Maid of Arcady, His Lordship, and Other 
Stories." By Mrs. Burton Harrison. Illustrated $1.50 



Publications of Lamson, TVoljfe £ff Company 5 

"A Virginia Cousin, and Bar Harbor Tales." By Mrs. 
Burton Harrison . . . . . $1.25 

"Earth's Enigmas." By Charles G. D. Roberts . $1.25 

Miscellaneous. 

"Diomed: The Life, Travels, and Observations of a 
Dog." By John Sergeant Wise. With 100 illus- 
trations by J. Linton Chapman . . ,$2.00 

" Ex Libris. Essays of a Collector." By Charles Dexter 
Allen $3-00, net 

" Uncle Sam's Church : His Creed, Bible, and Hymn- 
. Book." By John Bell Bouton ... .50 

" Two Unpublished Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson." 
With an introduction by Edward Everett Hale $1.00 

"'96 Charades." By Norman D. Gray . . $1.00 

" If Jesus Came to Boston." By Edward Everett Hale .50 

"My Double and How He Undid Me." By Edward 
Everett Hale ....... .75 

" Is Polite Society Polite ? and Other Essays." By Mrs. 
Julia Ward Howe ..... $1.50 

" In Friendship's Name." "I Two gift books compiled bv 
" What Makes a Friend ? " j Volney Streamer $1.25 each 

"Threads of Life." By Clara Sherwood Rollins $1.00 

"Orderly Book of General George Washington, Com- 
mander in Chief of the American Armies, kept at 
Valley Forge, 18 May-Il June, 1778" $1.00, net 



